The British watch industry is miffed by the slow pace of progress by some Swiss watch brands when it comes to embracing ecommerce.
But it is worth noting that the UK is way ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to online shopping, which might explain why there is less urgency from other parts of the world.
In its annual International Communications Market Report 2017, British communications regulator Ofcom says UK consumers spent twice as much online as every other advanced nation that it tracks.
In 2016, UK consumers spent £2,175 per head, Ofcom reports.
This is also driving a dramatic increase in spending on digital advertising, which accounted for more than 50% of all advertising expenditure in the UK for the first time in 2016.
Internet shopping is also driving innovation in the postal sector. Ofcom’s survey found that UK consumers were more likely to use next-day delivery services than were consumers in other countries, and a third of UK consumers had used same-day delivery for an online purchase.
About three-quarters of internet users in the UK and the US said they had used a website or app to track the delivery of a parcel or online shopping delivery and, in the UK, 23% said they had had a delivery made to a parcel locker, compared to 75% in France.
