A new study from Lloyds Bank has found that more people carry out shopping online at 8pm on Sunday evenings than during any other point in the week, according to the Guardian.

This trend is being fuelled by m-commerce and the habit of second screening, where people watch TV with their families while also checking out the latest deals on the web simultaneously.

While Sunday may play host to the weekly peak in terms of user numbers, consumers are more likely to buy the most expensive items at 11am on Monday, the same figures show.

Analysts looked at millions of transactions over the course of the past year and concluded that safe shopping online is more popular than ever, with Brits tending to make use of high street stores only as a kind of showroom for products which they visit, before completing a purchase via the web.

Report spokesperson, Paul Gordon, said that the explanation behind Monday mornings being the peak period in terms of spending has a lot to do with this trend of ‘showrooming’. He contends that consumers head to physical stores at the weekend to check out potential purchases in person, then buy the same items online on the first day of the working week.

Popular Sunday night shows, like the recently concluded competing series of ITV’s The X-Factor and the BBC’s Planet Earth II, mean that more people are sharing the sofa at this point in time. But the draw of online shopping can be too great to resist even with something worth watching on the TV, which is why visitor figures and sales are so high at this point.

This trend will continue over the Christmas break, with December 25th and 26th likely to attract large numbers of people to e-commerce sites.