Looked at in more detail, NOP’s new data indicate that some 480,000 people in the UK shopped for holidays and travel online in the four weeks leading up to last Christmas. In terms of the value of their purchases, this group spent an average of £420 per person. This spend far outweighs that of the estimated 335,000 UK online grocery shoppers who spent an average of £113 each over the same period. The trend towards buying holidays and travel online is predicted to continue over the early part of 2001, partly because of the usual seasonal rise in activity. Carl Geraghty, senior researcher at NOP, explains, "Given that we are now in the middle of the main holiday booking period, we expect to see online holiday expenditure rise substantially."

Irrespective of the purchases made, it appears that satisfaction with online shopping remains generally high in the UK. NOP found that only 2% of all online shoppers displayed some degree of dissatisfaction with the process. Even the biggest causes of complaint attracted fewer than one in ten unhappy customers. The major complaints were that 9% of shoppers were dissatisfied with the cost of delivery and 8% with the speed of delivery. Only 1% claimed that they were dissatisfied with the condition of the goods on arrival. Continuing in this positive vein, the typical online shopper predicted that their spend on online shopping would probably increase up to 3 times within the next 12 months. Only one in a hundred thought that their spend levels would actually decrease in this time frame. Geraghty summed up the research's main conclusion as, "Online shopping is a major driving force in the decision to acquire Internet access. With 13,000 new Internet users a day and such a low level of dissatisfaction with online shopping, it is abundantly clear that there is enormous potential for companies offering appropriate products, backed by a strong brand & service proposition." NOP’s Internet User Profile Survey was based on interviews with 400 adults who shop online, carried out between 1 and 24 December 2000.