The UK online shopping sector is seeing high street retailers beginning to overtake stores based entirely on the internet in terms of website visits, new figures have suggested.

Released by research company Hitwise, the statistics showed that the websites of high street stores such as Argos, Next and Marks and Spencer saw almost a fifth more visits than those belonging to the likes of Amazon, Play.com and Asos.com last month.

Similar spikes in web visits were recorded in Christmas 2006 and 2007, prompting Hitwise UK research director Robin Goad to predict that this December will be a critical month for high street retailers in the face of declining footfall at physical stores.

"It looks like high street retailers will be more reliant than ever on their online operations this Christmas," he remarked.

The figures came after the most recent IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index showed that 17p out of every retail pound was spend online in the UK during the first half of the year.

UK consumers spent more than £26.5 billion on internet shopping during this period, the index suggested.