Amazon, which averaged 15.6m unique users each month during the Christmas period (October to December) and Play.com, which averaged 5.7m unique users a month, were the only pure-plays to feature in the top ten.

Amazon was top of the list, with Argos coming in second (8.2m users on average per month) and Tesco in third (7.3m users on average each month).

Littlewoods, which ranked sixth, was the fastest growing site in the top ten after it saw a 66% year-on-year increase.

Asda (8th) grew by 53% over the Christmas period while Marks & Spencer (5th) saw a 46% increase.

Alex Burmaster, communications director of Nielsen Online, said, “Online retail won’t be impervious to the tighter financial environment but it has an opportunity to weather the storm better than other elements of the economy, particularly if retailers promote the web as the best way of finding cheaper goods in the most efficient and convenient way possible.”

Source: nma.co.uk