Kirkwall residents most prolific Black Friday shoppers outside of London

Shoppers in Kirkwall, Orkney, made the most online purchases of anywhere in Scotland over the course of Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year, a report has revealed.

Kirkwall was the second busiest online shopping hotspot in the UK.

Office workers in Central London top the list of the UK’s most prolific shoppers in the biggest cyber shopping event of the year, according to the Royal Mail, while those living in Kirkwall, followed by Lerwick, on Shetland, were the next most keen consumers over the Christmas shopping weekend.

The top ten online shopping hotspots are based on analysis of parcels accepted into the Royal Mail network between 26 November and 3 December and weighted against the number of delivery points. Items were accepted from online retailers and e-commerce businesses for delivery via the Royal Mail Tracked 24 and Royal Mail Tracked 48 services.

Remote island locations are hotspots of online shopping due to the lack of physical stores in close proximity.

Black Friday, which began in the US, is now widely regarded as the start of the Christmas shopping season in the UK. According to recent research from Royal Mail, almost half of festive shoppers do most or all of their shopping online, with UK festive online shopping spend up 11 per cent compared to the previous twelve months.

A spokeswoman for Royal Mail said “We have looked at parcel delivery data across our network of delivery offices and this has revealed that Central London is the UK’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday online shopping hotspot for 2019.

"The data shows that parcel delivery at Christmas is just as important for our rural customers as it is for our city customers. We take the planning for the festive period very seriously and start preparing for the next year the moment the current one is over.”

In December 2018, Royal Mail handled 164 million parcels, up 10 per cent compared with the year before.