Online shopping sales in the UK are now growing ten times faster than their high street equivalent, according to the latest figures from industry body the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG).

According to the group, the surge in growth is due in part to the investment made "on the supply side" in the past 18 months by many retailers. The IMRG's monthly Index of the UK's top 50 online retailers, meanwhile, reported Amazon still in first place, with Argos moving up to second and Expedia in third.

Tesco, which has announced a new Tesco Direct catalogue-based shopping initiative for non-food based items, dropped to fifth.

Conrad Bennett of web analytics specialist WebTrends said that Tesco's new venture highlights the ease with which retailers can dabble in new areas without radically changing their business models, and that by using its stores as pick-up points the supermarket giant could trump many online-only retailers.

"Most Tesco stores are 50 percent warehouse so they have a big opportunity to do something fairly revolutionary," he argued. "Most online retailers don't have that opportunity, they have to go through delivery systems or the postal network."

Another survey released this week by credit information group Experian found that the UK's biggest spenders on home shopping were "cash rich, time poor" consumers.
Bennett said that these type of customers offer great money-making potential for firms but they will be less swayed by "flashy special offers", so online retailers should instead concentrate on "retention and loyalty".

"It's difficult for most firms to relate to because their metrics are related to revenue and how effective their campaigns are in getting people [to the site] and converting," he said. "Retention metrics are less mature…but it's a balance between growing the business and keeping the customers you have."