A report from eMarketer has found that UK consumers are amongst the most avid ecommerce users in the world which will drive the business-to-consumer (B2C) sales in the country to £62.49bn in 2013.
B2C sales will further increase to £89.73bn or 16.0% of total UK retail sales, by 2017, the report forecasts.
UK retail ecommerce sales will reach £44.06bn, which will account for 70.5% of B2C ecommerce sales in 2013 and the share of retail ecommerce is expected to rise to 72.5%, or £65.05bn by 2017.
The report found that the mobile commerce sales are growing at a healthy rate as a proportion of the UK’s B2C retail ecommerce sales.
The consumers in the country are increasingly buying products and services with their tablets, but the report said that the bulk of digital transactions are still executed through desktop or laptop.
Sales through mobile phones and tablets are expected to record 71.8%, a year-over-year increase to £6.61bn, which represents 15% of UK retail ecommerce sales.
The report estimates that retail mcommerce sales is expected to increase by more than £2bn per year over the next four years, and will reach £17.24bn in 2017.
UK travel sector, on the other hand is now a mature market which was one of the first industry to adopt internet.
As the market matures, the share of travel industry in the UK B2C ecommerce is expected to decline from 30.5% in 2011 to 29.5% in 2013 and to 27.5% in 2017.