Tesco kick-starts holiday online sales battle

LONDON, UK: Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, launched an online sale on Tuesday, underscoring the growing importance of the Internet as firms battle to win a share of the traditional January sales spending frenzy.

Tesco said its online sale would initially cover furniture, homeware and sports products and would extend to electrical goods on Christmas Eve. Its in-store sale will start on Dec. 26.

The Internet is increasingly a key battleground for retailers over the holiday season as they look to attract shoppers who have held out for bargains in the January sales or are looking to spend gift tokens.

The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) forecasts Britons will spend 21.9 billion pounds ($35.1 billion) in the post-Christmas sales, up 1.5 percent on the same time last year.

That is within a total projected spend over the festive season of 66.6 billion pounds, which would be up around 1.2 billion on the same time the year before.

Some 4.3 million Britons will go online on Christmas Day in a bid to snap up the best deals, according to online retail industry body IMRG.

The bargain hunters -- roughly half the number who watched the Queen's traditional televised Christmas message last Dec. 25 -- will spend around 120 million pounds ($192 million), or an average of 28 pounds each, the IMRG forecast.

That would be up from 102 million pounds last Christmas Day.

Boxing Day is set to be even busier. Last year it was the busiest day of the year in terms of traffic to online retail sites, as shoppers researched potential future spending in store as well as making immediate purchases.

"We have already seen that shoppers are willing to hold out longer for a bargain this year, with 'Cyber Monday' moving a week closer to Christmas," said Robin Goad, research director at online data specialist Experian Hitwise, referring to the busiest online trading day in the run up to Christmas.

"This behaviour is likely to carry through to the post-Christmas period, with people logging on after Christmas lunch to find the best discounts before hitting the high street and shopping malls the following day."

Last year, Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, Boots, Debenhams, Play.com and M&M Direct all started sales on Christmas Day.