By Peter Kent
Online spending is so popular in Britain it will rescue retail from the economic slowdown.
This is the prediction made by PayPal as it released the PayPal UK Online Retail Report.
Carried out by Experian, the study forecasts a fall in spending trends for high street sales but a rise of up to 49 per cent for sales made by catalogues and over the internet.
It also predicts that the retail sector will exit recession in 2011.
PayPal UK's managing director Carl Scheible said that there has been an "online boom" even as retailers struggle with their bricks-and-mortar stores.
In January, PayPal released a report which found that consumers were looking for speed and simplicity from online retail as well as good prices.
Security was the biggest concern for online shoppers, cited by 84 per cent of those polled, while simplicity and ease of payment came second, from 78 per cent.
