National postal operator Royal Mail has released a list of the top ten towns whose residents went online shopping over the Easter weekend. The South West region of the UK was the busiest in terms of e-commerce with Exeter being the top town and the seaside resort of Torquay being the second busiest in the UK.
According to Royal Mail the list of top ten hotspots for Easter online shopping in 2016 according to Royal Mail was this:
1. Exeter
2. Torquay
3. Aberdeen
4. Dumfries
5. Inverness
6. Plymouth
7. Shrewsbury
8. Carlisle
9. Milton Keynes
10.Truro
Nick Landon, Managing Director, Royal Mail Parcels, commented: “The Easter bank holiday is a key shopping event both online and on the high street. Analysis of parcels handled by our extensive network of around 1,400 delivery offices reveals that Exeter is this year’s Easter online shopping hotspot. As always, customers shopping online want their orders processed as quickly as possible so we have extended the acceptance times for our Tracked48 services making it possible for retailers to insert their parcels into our network up until 12pm for delivery either the next working day or in two working days”.
The findings are based on the average number of parcels that were delivered to each address in that area immediately after the Easter weekend. These were derived from an analysis of Royal Mail Tracked parcels that were accepted from retailers and businesses into the Royal Mail network on Monday 28th, Tuesday 29th and Wednesday 30th March.
Though some retailers are pushing, Easter has yet to become a major retailing weekend. Customers traditionally move from buying consumer goods to home furnishings and garden work, and the online marketplace has yet to gain much strength in these sectors.