BRITAIN’S largest online retailers, tesco.com, and ocado.com, the internet business of Waitrose, expect orders to double next month compared with the same period last year.

Tesco.com is expecting to make a delivery every two seconds — two and a half times its normal rate of 120,000 orders a week. The boom is part of a trend by internet shoppers who spent £11.4 billion last year, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics released yesterday. The figure represents a 78 per cent increase from 2002.

Shoppers are expected to spend £3 billion in Britain over the internet this Christmas, according to Forrester Research, the consultancy firm. It forecasts that total European internet shopping will reach £9.1 billion, which for the first time will beat the US where shoppers are expected to spend £7 billion online over Christmas.

A large proportion of the increase is expected to come from spending on travel and clothing sales, it is predicted.

The retailers’ organisation, the Interactive Media in Retail Group, says the annual rate of growth in online sales will accelerate to about 60 per cent next month as shoppers buy their Christmas gifts at home. James Roper, IMRG chief executive, said internet spending would likely accelerate as retailers invested more in online stores.

The growth in internet shopping is, however, dwarfed by business-to-business transactions. Of the £39.5 billion spent in the UK online last year, £28.1 billion was spent by companies trading between themselves.

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