SHOPPING centre bosses in East Lancashire have urged people to head to their local high streets to pick up their Christmas gifts.

The call came as online retailers expected their busiest day of the year yesterday on ‘Cyber Monday’.

Internet shopping figures consistently peak on the first Monday in December, thought to be a combination of the last payday before Christmas falling on the previous Friday and a weekend spent browsing the shops before buying from home.

Online shopping is up 10.1 per cent this year compared to 2012, according to Barclaycard, which processes nearly half of all card transactions in the UK.

But bosses at shopping centres in Blackburn and Burnley said there was nothing like being able to shop in person.

General manager of the Charter Walk Shopping Centre in Burnley Chris Gribben said: “People do still like to see, feel and touch the products they are buying. They like to know and compare the product they are buying.

“It also gives them an opportunity to get advice from the person they are buying from.”

And Blackburn’s The Mall general manager Loraine Jones said there was a strong social aspect to going out shopping.

She said: “I may be old fashioned but I still believe there is something much better about being able to touch, smell or feel the gift before you actually buy it.

“There is nothing like contact with the product. It is also about the social experience. It is a day out with friends that you don’t get with online shopping.”

The first Monday in December last year represented the highest day of online spending in Barclaycard’s history as online consumers spent an average of £57 per transaction.

This pushed up the proportion of total online spend to 28 per cent for the day.