UK Users Flock to E-Tailing Sites

More than 5 million Internet users in the UK made a secure connection at an e-tailing site in November of 2000, an increase of more than 3.25 million users when compared to November of 1999, according to NetValue.

The most dramatic increase tracked by NetValue is with female users, with 1,780,000 women making a secure connection, almost four times as high as at the same time in 1999. Secure connections are considered an indicator of possible e-commerce transactions because online shopping and banking are done over secure connections.

November’s pre-holiday rush saw 10,781,000 Internet users in the UK, an increase of 600,000 over October. Not surprisingly, Amazon.co.uk had its best month in November of 2000, with 15.1 percent of all home Internet users, or 1,627,931 unique users, visiting the site.

According to NetValue, the most visited secure Web site in the UK in November belonged to banking site Barclays.co.uk. Nearly 80 percent of all visitors to Barclays made a secure connection to the site, staying for an average of 22.9 minutes. Of the top 10 secure Web sites in the UK, six are financial, evidence that Internet users are becoming increasingly confident with carrying out financial truncations online. More than 460,000 users made a secure connection on amazon.co.uk and more than 190,000 users on tesco.com.

Etoys.co.uk (which will close effective Jan. 19, 2001) was the most visited games and toys Web site in the UK with 377,335 unique visitors. Users stayed on the site for an average of 16.5 minutes in November. ToysRUs.co.uk had 269,525 unique visitors and toyzone.co.uk had 150,934 unique visitors.

In the pre-holiday rush, 7.5 percent (808,000) of UK Internet users visited an electronic greetings site, an increase of more than 190,000 since October. Bluemountain.com was the most visited e-card Web site, followed closely by americangreetings.com.