Grocery retailers fared well with their online offerings over the Christmas period, with Woolworths, Coles and ALDI all reporting notable growth in audiences for their sites and apps.
According to Nielsen Digital Ratings for December 2017, Woolworths reported a unique audience of 8.1 million in Australia, a 14.4 per cent increase over the previous year. This was followed by Coles (5.1 million, up 7.2 per cent) and ALDI (2.5 million, up 14.4 per cent).
More adults in Australia than ever took to online retailers and department stores for their Christmas shopping in December 2017, (14.4 million), increasing the number of those who visited the online mass-merchandise sub-category by 6.3 per cent  compared with December 2016.
About 8.8 million adults in Australia spent an average of 56 minutes online during December 2017, searching and shopping in the mass-merchandise sub-category via desktop, according to Nielsen. More people accessed via their smartphones (9.3 million), but with a lower average time of 18 minutes per person, followed by tablet with 4.9 million people who spent close to 17 minutes on average per person.
Online electrical and department stores also attracted an influx of adults in Australia  in December 2017 compared with the previous year, despite some individual brands showing year-on-year declines in audiences. However, month-on-month increases showed an overall increase in online audiences.
