The popularity of safe shopping online is likely to be higher among older shoppers in the run up to the festive season this year, according to the results of a survey conducted by RadiumOne.

While 45 per cent of all adults aged over 16, who have already worked out which platforms they are going to use to buy their Christmas gifts and supplies in the next few weeks, say that they will use the internet to help them. This rises to 58 per cent when looking at those aged between 45 and 54.

The implication is that middle aged shoppers are keen to embrace safe shopping online when researching products and making purchases. And the number of people who are solely using the high street to make their buying decisions and carry out transactions is dwindling.

Just 13 per cent of respondents said that they would only be making use of bricks and mortar outlets to find out about products and source their Christmas gifts this year. This is slightly higher than the 12 per cent who said that they will only be doing in-store research and then completing purchases online at a later point.

This shows that online shoppers have a lot of faith in the product descriptions and reviews which are available online, seeing these as adequate enough to inform their purchasing decisions, without having to see products in person.

About a quarter of respondents said that they like to look for gifts online and then buy them in the high street. However, since these figures are representative only of those consumers who have already planned ahead for their Christmas shopping activities this year, perhaps it is skewed towards habits seen among those who are the most prepared.