Suzanne Taylor plans to avoid the last-minute Christmas rush this year and buy up to a third of her Christmas presents online. Over the next couple of weeks she will order her gifts over the internet and have them sent direct to friends and relatives.

“Sometimes it is cheaper, sometimes it is just less hassle,” said the 30-year-old.

A few years ago Taylor, who lives in Norwich, would only log on to Amazon to buy the odd book or CD. These days she also shops online at Lastminute.com, Marks & Spencer and Tesco — although Amazon remains her favourite. Chocolates, flowers and computer games have now been added to her regular online shopping list.

Taylor is not the only one who will be logging on this Christmas, thereby avoiding the crowds on the high street and the traffic jams at out-of-town shopping centres. Figures released last week revealed that 2005 will, for many shoppers, be an online Christmas, with record sales predicted for internet retailers.

Interactive Media in Retail Group, the industry body for internet retailers, expects some 24m British shoppers to spend £5 billion online this Christmas.

The internet is booming. John Lewis announced last week that catalogue and online sales would exceed £100m this year.

The boom has even prompted Treasury officials to ask whether official retail sales figures produced by the Office for National Statistics fully reflect the increasing importance of online shopping and therefore provide a true picture of consumer confidence.

But it is not dotcom entrepreneurs who are making a fortune from the phenomenal growth in internet shopping. Traditional retailers have gate-crashed the party: the likes of Tesco, Argos and Next are cashing in.

According to Hitwise — a research firm that measures internet usage — six of Britain’s largest online shops are run by traditional high-street retailers — although Ebay and Amazon still top the list.

Tesco.com — which is ranked fourth by Hitwise — now serves 170,000 shoppers a week online and its sales are growing fast. In 2004, Tesco had a 24.1% increase in online sales to £719m and a 51.8% rise in profits to £36m, although its internet operation accounts for only a fraction of British sales, which amounted to £29.5 billion in 2004.

Ranked in terms of sales or profits, Tesco.com is far larger than Amazon.co.uk, which made a pre-tax profit of £6.5m from sales of £39m in the 12 months to December 31, 2003, according to the latest accounts filed at Companies House.

So how have retailers like Woolworths and Next stolen a march on online rivals?

ON DECEMBER 11, 2000 the vultures gathered at the former headquarters of the internet retailer Boxman.com in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Once ranked the No 2 internet retailer in Europe, the business had collapsed after failing to secure new financing from investors.

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