The latest report from RetailMeNot has looked at how British consumers are expected to spend their cash online over the coming months, with a total of around £52.25 billion anticipated to pass through digital checkouts over 2015 as a whole.

Individual buyers are set to spend an average of £1,174 via the web this year, which is a 14.9 per cent rise compared with 2014.

In addition, the typical consumer is predicted to make just over 21 purchases through e-commerce sites in 2015. And, as with many other reports of this kind, the study revealed that people in the UK are the most avid users of safe shopping online in the whole of Europe, easily outpacing those in Germany, France and elsewhere.

Around 15.2 per cent of total sales made in the retail market this year will be attributed to online shopping, which means there is still some way to go before the web becomes the default platform for buying goods and services, even in the UK.

Meanwhile both online and off, it looks like the big trend this year in the world of retail will be personalisation, with high street stores attempting to keep pace with their e-commerce rivals in the way that they offer adaptable experiences to consumers.

At the bricks and mortar level, this will invariably involve the use of some kind of smartphone app integration, since without a digital angle, it is very difficult for retailers to make the in-store experience evolve.

Online, however, is a different matter, since retail sites can be flexible and highly adaptive, allowing them to automatically adjust to the needs of specific users. And the rise of social media in the e-commerce sector is allowing new shopping opportunities to regularly arise for consumers.