Britain’s businesses sold goods and services worth a total of £688 billion last year, equating to an annual growth rate of 18 per cent, according to Internet Retailing.

These figures come from a new study published by the government which suggests that the increase in online sales is occurring at the fastest rate since such activity began to be tracked half a decade ago.

The report not only looks at sites which offer safe shopping online to consumers but also at the broader business ecosystem in which organisations sell to one another as well as to their customers.

When breaking down the numbers according to the size of companies, it is the larger firms with at least 1000 employees that make greater use of the web to secure sales, with typical members of this group drawing in almost a third of revenues via e-commerce.

For smaller businesses it is still the case that less than a tenth of sales are generated online, although this is partly due to the fact that a smaller proportion even have the means to sell via the web.

Also assessed in the study was the state of internet connectivity for British businesses, with average speeds of between 30Mbps and 100Mbps reported in 2018.

Analysts even examined the state of play in terms of IT security, with close to a fifth of larger firms reporting that there was some kind of issue in this area over the course of the year. This shows that more may need to be done in order to ensure that companies are completely protected against data loss as well as theft and other malicious activities.

Retail may be leading the way when it comes to e-commerce adoption, but this report shows just how valuable online assets are to all industries.