U.K. online shoppers will increase 83% to 32 million by 2011, study says

By 2011, 32 million consumers in the United Kingdom will be shopping online, representing about 83% of online consumers, according to a new report from Forrester Research. That’s a 28% increase from the 25 million U.K. consumers expected to shop online this year.

In addition, U.K. online consumers will increase their annual online spending by about one-third, from €1,700 ($2,192) today to almost €2,500 ($3,223) in 2011, for total online spending of €76 ($98) million in 2011, Forrester said. That will make the average U.K. online shopper the highest spender in the world after the Sweden’s online consumers.

By 2011, leisure travel will be the top online retail category—consumers will spend €19 million ($24.5 million) online, about 37% of their total leisure travel spending, Forrester estimates. Online spending on apparel will total €14.1 million ($18.2 million), up from €6.4 million ($8.3 million) this year.

Overall, European e-commerce will surge to €263 billion ($339 billion) in 2011, with travel, clothes, groceries and consumer electronics all above the €10 billion ($12.9 billion) per year mark, Forrester said.

However, many U.K consumers still won’t shop online because they don’t want to give out personal financial information online, they want to see products and they simply feel no need to shop online, Forrester found.