Boxing Day was the busiest online shopping day of 2007 and the number of bargain hunters searching for post-Christmas Sales online more than trebled during the festive holiday period.

Internet searches for the word Sales in the week to December 29 rocketed 249 per cent against the same week in 2006, according to e-tail traffic monitor Hitwise. There was also a 200 per cent increase in searches for the word Sale over the same period.

Hitwise UK director of research Robin Goad said: “Online holiday shopping started earlier than ever this year, but a sluggish last couple of weeks before Christmas also forced many retailers to discount goods and start their Sales earlier.”

Play.com received the most traffic from shoppers looking for bargains, receiving over a quarter of the traffic from searches for Sales and Sale in the week ending December 29. This made it the fourth most-visited shopping and classified web site in the UK that week.

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