According to the sixth annual International Communications Market report from Ofcom, UK consumers shop online more than any other ‘major’ country. The report states that 79% of internet users in the UK said they had ordered goods or services online in 2010.

China is another heavy eCommerce shopper. Internet sales in China reached 4.5 trillion yuan ($684 billion) in 2010. Consumer online spending basically doubled to 513.1 billion yuan in 2010 from one year prior.

There are numerous reasons for consumers to take their buying online. Convenience, accessibility of a limitless variety of products not bound by regional preference, and on-the-go casual browsing are among the factors that make the Internet an attractive marketplace. Recent advances in speed, ubiquity and security have given consumers more reason to take the online buying leap of faith.

The global ecommerce industry may see a huge rise in activity within the virtual goods market this holiday season. One big reason for the growth of virtual goods include the explosive growth of smartphones and tablet devices, which compel users to participate in the virtual goods market, whether simply downloading a free application or buying an iTunes gift card.

In a US-focused statistics report last month by  from Elastic Path it showed that  27% of holiday shoppers are planning to buy digital wares with 36% of those intending to spend more on virtual items than they did in 2010.

What are the most popular digital gifts?

• Game downloads
• Rentals
• Subscriptions

About 21% of consumers are considering giving game downloads, rentals and subscriptions as gifts to others this season. Music downloads/subscriptions and ebooks are the runners up with 16%-20% of consumers seeking to populate their devices with media.  And, of course, we should not forgot redeemable gift cards which are extremely popular with digital buyers.

Mobile conversion rates are not as strong as tablet conversion rates according to a new report by Monetate, a cloud-based metrics platform. The study monitored traffic and purchases from Thanksgiving to ‘Cyber Monday’ and tracked bounce rates and ‘add to cart rates’ across the three platforms–websites, mobile and tablet ecommerce. The data focuses on visits from 12.5 million in 2010 and 15.5 million in 2011, and the random selection process of the report helps to prevent unintended bias.

The study showed that mobile eCommerce achieved a conversion rate of 2.3%, whereas desktop websites achieved a 5.4% conversion rate on average. Tablet-based eCommerce usage was an impressive 5%.

Despite the fact of this study that mobile is underperforming when placed in comparison against tablet and desktop ecommerce experiences, mobile is helping to dramatically change the world of online shopping through the entire buying cycle: discovery, research, branding, conversion and loyalty. The personalized and perpetual, on-the-go experience of mobile is becoming more entrenched in buyers lifestyles so the mobile revolution is still in it’s infancy. Tablet is a new (hybrid) experience that may help influence and transform the desktop web development industry–helping to further personalize the experience of the web.

Amazon Prime offers it’s customers free shipping after paying a yearly membership of $79. The idea is quite fantastic–as it encourages it’s buyers with a loyalty program with perks beyond just the shipping deal.

Amazon Prime may face competition from outside the ranks of the eCommerce world. The Wall Street Journal has published that Google is in talks with many large retailers regarding a service that would offer fast and inexpensive shipping. It appears that Google may be seeking out partners like the USPS and UPS for a same-day, or next-day delivery service for eCommerce.

Amazon is a default search engine for products, gifts and books for many shoppers who are in the mood to buy or simply research. Google needs to break into the product search market to strengthen it’s core discipline. Prime is essentially stealing potential search users from Google, and such users are highly valuable to the search giant as they are driven to click on those little text ads that are the primary revenue source of Google.

The British seem to be a bit more keen on product reviews than US Internet users.

According to a new survey from Lexis and digital outfit Beyond, nearly half of UK users have reviewed a product online compared to 33% in the US.

UK users are more likely to purchase a product after engaging with brands online. Nearly half, (43%),  were influenced to make a purchase compared to 31% in the US.

Also in the survey, one of five, 20%, of both US and UK consumers were prompted to share a recommendation after engaging with a brand.