The amount of money lost by online companies due to postal strikes sabotaging their desire for delivering has been marked at a particularly high number, according to a recent sales index.

IMRG Capgemini's e-Retail Sales Index revealed that the growth in online sales was hit hard, leading to a £53 million drop in sales.

Despite this, sales are still up year-on-year for big and small businesses in IT alike, as IMRG also revealed that British shoppers spent £4.2 billion online during October alone.

Mike Petevinos, the head of retail consulting at IMRG Capgemini, continued: "With consumer confidence restored, e-retailers can get on with the real challenge of convincing consumers to spend online and resist the temptation to wait even longer for last minute discounting on the high street."

He added that in a twist of irony, careful and tactical online promotions could be the key to succeeding over the period.

As part of its retail insight, IMRG consults a membership made up of hundreds of retail organisations and enterprises that supply technology and services to aid e-retail solutions.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were guaranteed response times and allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues.