UK consumers are Europe's biggest shoppers

Over 270 million European internet users visited retail web sites in January, with UK sites reaching a whopping 89.4 per cent of shoppers, the highest number in the region, according to the latest stats from market researcher comScore.

France came in second with 87 per cent of internet users accessing retail sites, followed by Germany with 82.1 per cent.

Ireland and Russia rounded out the top five, with just over 80 per cent of the internet population in both markets visiting retail sites.

Consumers in the UK spent the most time on retail sites, clocking an average of 84.1 minutes. This was well ahead of the European average of 52.4 minutes per visitor, the figures suggested.

French users averaged 83.2 minutes and Turkish visitors spent 73 minutes on retail sites.

Amazon remained the most popular site in the UK, registering a total of 18.88 million unique visitors in January. The site reached nearly half of UK online shoppers (48.8 per cent) and users spent an average of 21.2 minutes browsing.

The Argos and Homebase sites, running under the banner of the Home Retail Group, were the second most visited, recording 9.98 million unique visitors.

Apple, meanwhile, attracted just under nine million views, Tesco had 6.9 million and Play.com rounded off the top five with 4.7 million.

Comparison web sites were found to have the highest market penetration, reaching 31.6 per cent of internet users. However, they attracted visitors for an average of only 5.9 minutes.

Despite the increased penetration in the UK, Germany has the largest online market with 40.6 million visitors accessing retail sites. France is second with 36.6 million and the UK third with 34.6 million, comScore said.

The market research firm added that one in every 10 internet sessions in Europe included a visit to a retail site in 2010. With the increased adoption of e-retail friendly smartphones and tablets, however, this is likely to continue rising.