Research says Britain's online grocery shoppers spend more at their main store than offline shoppers do

Online buyers of groceries are spending more than those offline for their main shop, research has revealed.

More two-fifths (22 per cent) of Britons who do their main grocery shopping online fork out more than £101 per trip but only seven per cent of store-based grocer shoppers spend this amount, the findings from Lightspeed Research revealed.

Three-fifths of the online spenders will dish out between £51 and £100 on each online shop, compared to 42 per cent of offline shoppers, the research found.

Around £11bn of retail spending in the UK takes place online and, although a significant sum, this only represents a 4.5 per cent share of total retail spending, a spokesman from the British Retail Consortium said.

Only 46 per cent of online shoppers do their main grocery shopping once a fortnight or less, compared to 77 per cent of offline shoppers who do their main shopping at least once per week, according to the research.

The spokesman said if the research averaged out all the occasions shoppers visit online or offline stores across the year, it would tell a different story.