Retailers are being told to be vigilant over the festive season, with a new survey released today claiming that 65% of people will be online at some point on Christmas Day – with 63% logging in on Boxing Day.

The research, conducted by open cloud provider Rackspace, revealed some interesting findings regarding consumers’ holiday online habits.

One in five polled said they would shop using their tablets – up from 12% this time last year – with 16% saying they would use their smartphones, up from 11%. This certainly makes for interesting reading considering a ResponseTap study published earlier this month revealed smartphones offer three times as many conversions than previously thought.

There were also some worrying trends for retailers uncovered in the research. Over a third (35%) of those polled said they were looking to spend less at Christmas than last year, yet the overall average individual budget for Christmas presents is £375.

Rackspace worked out that a potential £10bn is up for grabs for retailers this Christmas, with an overall UK Christmas budget pot of £18bn and 56% of respondents admitting they’d spend more than half of their allocation online.

Similarly, two in three (63%) of those surveyed said they had experienced dissatisfaction with their online purchasing journey, with the most popular reason being complicated checkout procedures (33%), followed by slow loading websites (28%).

As a result, just under half (48%) of respondents claim they abandoned their carts – a problem covered extensively on MarketingTech in the past.

Jeff Cotten, international MD at Rackspace, said: “It’s clear from our findings that UK consumers are increasingly going online to shop, and with the competition high for that £10bn, online retailers can’t afford to lose custom due to frustrations caused by slow websites or checkouts.”

What do you make of the survey results?