Rakuten, the Japanese online commerce giant, has released a report suggesting that many people use internet shopping as a way of getting over the 'back to work blues' at the beginning of the week.

The company, whose online properties include Play.com in the UK, highlighted a number of trends in national web shopping habits based on traffic and sales information gathered through its various sites and marketplaces across the globe.

Various themes were explored in the research, from how people fit internet shopping into their daily lives to the growth of mobile commerce, the Drum reported.

Heading online to search for products appears to be a popular way of banishing back to work blues in the US, UK and Germany, where the number of people shopping peaks on a Monday.

In America and the UK, the most popular time for mobile browsing appears to be in the morning, with many commuters using their trip to work as an opportunity to visit internet marketplaces.

Rakuten statistics relating to dwell times suggest that clothing and books are the most common impulse purchases for British consumers, who reportedly spend less than a minute viewing these items before going ahead with a purchase.

More expensive products such as televisions have an average dwell time of about two minutes.

Online retail, and related services such as cheap parcel delivery, is a major growth area in the UK, with industry association IMRG expecting the market to grow by 13 per cent in 2012.

John Andrews, managing director of IMRG, highlighted research showing there were 228,000 British online retail businesses in 2011, 30 per cent more than the year before.

Expansion is set to continue over the coming years, with the number of companies in the internet retail sector forecast to climb to some 1.5 million by 2015.

Author:  Adrian Medland