Britons spent £1M per minute on Christmas gifts on 'Mega Monday'

London, Dec 9 (ANI): Two weeks before Christmas, Britons were seen spending over a million pounds per minute on Christmas gifts on Monday.

With the great High Street revival continuing, shoppers couldn't stop themselves from dishing out the moolah on what retailers dubbed Mega Monday, despite a weekend of splashing the cash

What's more, online shoppers poured out an estimated 500,000 pounds a minute, 450m pounds in total, as they chose to get orders in before the postal deadline.

According to official figures, UK shoppers have defied the credit crunch by forking out 1billion pounds more in the first three weeks of November than they did last year.

In fact, experts have claimed that shoppers will surpass the grand total of 13billion pounds spent on festive shopping in 2007, with website sales alone this year.

"In the last week alone, online spending with a Visa debit card increased by 20% on the previous week, amounting to £600m," the Daily Star quoted Steve Perry from Visa Europe as saying.

And the big shopping boost has been backed by the lower VAT rate and massive sales.

In London's West End, a total of two million people visited shopping meccas Oxford Street and Regent Street over the weekend, which is 9.9 percent more than last year.

With shoppers ready to dole out money, even upmarket stores have slashed prices-Selfridges cut 30 percent off their fashion and home ranges while Debenhams offered up to 50 percent off selected women's party dresses and toys. And House of Fraser's Perfect Presents promotion offered 30 percent off some items.

However, it was Internet shopping that shocked finance experts.

James Roper from internet trading group IMRG said: "Mondays in December are usually huge. With retailers under extreme pressure, there will be great bargains out there and the internet is where to find them." (ANI)