Amazon UK reports ‘Cyber Monday’ as busiest shopping day in its history
Perhaps you were shopping online on Monday for Christmas presents? The statistics in this article are staggering: Amazon, the internet retailer said orders came in at a rate of 47 items a second, racking up 4.1m sales during the day and peaking at 9.22pm. Tesco said visits to its website were up 114% on Monday compared with a typical Monday, and John Lewis was boosted by a 300% jump in its traffic last Friday. Meanwhile, the Royal Mail has published a list of the top 10 online shopping locations: (1) Colchester, (2) Lincoln, and (3) Brighton.
I was at a meeting discussing rural economy issues in Leicestershire today and the growth in distribution in rural Hinterlands proximite to motorway in places like Coalville and Market Harborough is very pronounced. I have noticed the same in the “quiet” end of the M62 around Goole and in the massive Morrisons distribution centre near Bridgewater on the M5. I am sure that the mail order death of the small town centre is not really compensated for by the proliferation of warehousing on the rural fringes of motorways but it does make you think that there is more than just meets the eye to the impact of internet retailing on rural economies when considered in the round.