We recently ran a poll on Forrester's Facebook page: “Which market do you think has a higher percentage of sales coming from online channels — US or UK?"

While most respondents thought the US leads in online retail sales, the answer is actually the UK. Per Forrester's ForecastView latest estimates from the Forrester Research Online Retail Forecast, 2011 To 2016 (US) & (Western Europe), online retail sales in the US will top $200 billion, representing close to 7% of total retail sales of $3 trillion in 2011. Online retail sales in the UK will be £30.2 billion, representing 10% of total retail sales of £297 billion (per the Economist Intelligent Unit- EIU) in 2011.

The UK continues to have larger online channel share because:

  • The online buying population as a percentage of total population is higher in the UK.
  • UK online buyers’ average spend levels are slightly higher than those of US online buyers.
  • The UK population is more deal-sensitive and more prone to buying online.
  • Thanks to Tesco, online food (grocery) sales are a large contributor to online retail sales in the UK.

And? Did you guess right?