Christmas is fast approaching, and online retailers should be gearing up for the increased volumes of trade that peak on Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday is known as the busiest internet shopping day of the year. It is called Cyber Monday due to the fact that it happens every year on the first Monday of December.

Last year Amazon UK fulfilled 1.4 million items on Cyber Monday. At once stage this resulted in 16 items per second being ordered and the most items ordered in a 24 hour period.

All major UK retailers are gearing up for Cyber Monday, with many offering deals and discounts, often free shipping, in order to grab orders.

Cyber Monday is the UK's own version of Black Friday. Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving, which falls on a Thursday. Most Americans take both days off, and as a result everyone seems to do their Christmas shopping on that day.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics from December last year show that online
sales account for 3.5% of total retail sales, with average weekly sales of £238m. But with year on year growth of 19.6% from the previous year, these volumes are expected to continue growing.