A study from JP Morgan has revealed that Britain’s love of shopping online has allowed it to remain at the pinnacle of the market in terms of spending when compared with other European nations.

UK consumers spent the equivalent of almost £160 billion through the web last year, up by 9 per cent compared with the previous period measured.

This means that the demand for online shopping over here is more than twice as significant as seen in second place France.

Interestingly enough, the study also found that although Brits are more eager to bag online bargains than any of their continental counterparts, there is stronger growth in e-commerce spending elsewhere.

The Czech Republic is currently home to the most rapidly rising market for online shopping, with a 16 per cent annual growth rate currently projected for the next couple of years.

Czech consumers are also especially well versed in using smartphones to complete transactions, with mobiles accounting for just over half of all spending in this country.

The UK also boasted a small but significant majority for mobile use when it comes to shopping online. This suggests that the age of desktop dominance in this area is over and portable devices now reign supreme.

Report spokesperson Catherine Moore said that Europe was enjoying solid growth in e-commerce spending at the moment, with many countries seeing online spending increasing in double digits.

It is clear that even with so much activity recorded in other countries, the UK remains a dominant force when it comes to e-commerce.

There are a number of reasons for this state of affairs, not least because Brits were very early adopters of internet-powered services of all types and access to online bargains earlier than those elsewhere.