THE FACTS. 

– Expected sales of £312,500 per minute.

– Predictions of 7.7 million transactions and 113 million visits to online stores.

– Some researchers predict the peak will be at 7:57pm and others say 6pm.

– Total Christmas sales of £72.2 billion expected – with a third of that online.

A total of £450million is expected to be spent online during Cyber Monday. This shows a 16 per cent increase in sales on the same day last year, a study by John Lewis and Visa Europe showed.

With 7.7 million transaction taking place this will equate to an average of 320,833 every hour, or 5,437 a minute.

The British are expected to make more than 113 million visits to online stores throughout the day – with many using the last pay cheque before the big day to fund their purchases.

There is however some dispute over when the peak will hit, with Amazon bracing themselves for a 6pm rush. ‘The expected peak in sales at 6pm on Cyber Monday is interesting as traditionally sales have spiked later in the evening. In fact, in 2011, sales peaked at 9:20pm,’ said Xavier Garambois, vice president of EU Retail at Amazon.

It has been said by the Centre for Retail Research that total Christmas sales will be worth £72.2billion, the same as £351 per person which is a 2.1 per cent rise on last year. A third of the figure will be online.

Shoppers will spend a total of 400 million hours shopping online this month, putting it on track to be the biggest year for online shopping.

The growth of online sales can be attributed to an increased confidence in internet shopping. John Lewis’ online director Mark Lewis said ‘Shopping habits have changed in the past few years. Customers are more comfortable purchasing via mobiles and tablets, and there is better connectivity.’ 

Some researchers are not satisfied with records sales on Monday are predicting a middle Cyber Monday on December 9. Credit experts Experian expect more than 110 million visits on the day – saying it might even eclipse Cyber Monday. The company says the average customer will spend 8 hours browsing, researching and buying presents online this December – a 7.5 per cents increase year on year. ‘This year is going to be the biggest ever in terms of online retail visits and December 2013 should be the first month that the UK reaches the three billion benchmark for visits to retail websites,’ said James Murray, digital insights manager at Experian Marketing Services.

Last year Amazon saw more than 3.5 million items ordered on the site on Cyber Monday at a rate of around 41 items per second. That meant a lorry packed with Cyber Monday orders left one Amazon’s eight fulfilment centres every two minutes and ten seconds.