Around a third of all UK-based online purchases, and a quarter of the total visits, time spent and pages viewed on retail sites, are performed while at work, according to new stats from comScore which could give e-retailers some interesting clues about how to target advertising.

The figures, based on a monthly average of the first five months of 2009, show that nearly four out of five UK adults who use the internet now shop online. Despite this, recent research suggests that growth is expected to dip in the second half of 2009.

Interestingly, this disparity between how much time is spent on e-commerce sites, and the number of online purchases made at home and at the office, means that visitors from work computers are slightly more likely to purchase goods online than those accessing retail sites from home.

"Although online shoppers visit retail sites about three times more frequently at home than they do at work, they only spend twice as much at home, " said Mike Read, senior vice president and managing director of comScore Europe.

"That online shoppers are relatively more likely to make a purchase at work is not entirely surprising. In fact, we often see that people have very different browsing patterns between the two locations, having a tendency to be task-oriented and transaction-minded at work and more leisurely when browsing at home.

"By understanding such differences, online retailers can better optimise their online marketing and advertising strategies to reach consumers when they are closer to the point of purchase."

The research found that Amazon.co.uk is the UK's most visited online retail destination from both home and work, but Apple.com, which holds the overall second place, is hardly ever accessed from the office, while Tesco.co.uk and Next.co.uk were above average shopping destinations from a work PC.

The figures suggest that many people turn to online services at the office as way of helping strike a better work/life balance. The figures are not broken down by time, so it is unclear how much of this is done during lunch hours or breaks. But the research does suggest that companies are allowing access to these sites rather than blocking them in an attempt to boost productivity.