Online home and garden spending up 56%

Greenhouse and gardening enthusiasts significantly increased their online spending on equipment, new figures have revealed.

The latest IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index showed a 56 per cent rise in the amount spent on home and garden items in January compared with the same month the year before.

This represented an average spend of £120 per shopper and followed five months of declining sales in the sector.

Glimpses of an early spring could account for the rise, the study stated, as could heavy discounting by online retailers.

According to the report, online consumer expenditure across all sectors was £5.1 billion, the equivalent of £83 per person and an increase of 21 per cent on the same period in 2010.

In a recent article for the Daily Mail, Nigel Colborn suggested gardeners should take advantage of the large online community to gather advice and tips on all manner of topics related to taking care of an outside spac