UK Internet shopping saw a 22 per cent rise in June compared to last year’s numbers, according to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index – the highest monthly growth registered by the Index in two years.

But despite shopping totalling £4.4bn growth across the board, retailers could be jeopardising their chances to cash in on this latest sales spike by failing to keep details such as stock levels and new pricing up to date on the various online price comparison and product display sites.

So says online marketing company Gillissa, founder of automated product display solution Feed Manager, which has been working on improving the quality and accuracy of client product feeds for several years and says maintaining up-to-date information is the biggest issue for retailers advertising their products online.

Richard Wood, MD of Gillissa, said: "Maintaining product feeds can be hugely time-consuming for retailers or their online marketing providers and, as a result, many let the information lapse. We are seeing this happen daily and estimate that as many as eight out of ten products listed online currently have inaccurate information displayed."

Wood believes many retailers avoid addressing the issue because of fears that the developmental costs to create an automated feed update would far exceed the sales lost through inaccurate product information online: “It’s ironic that retailers are continuing to miss out on significant online sales when an automated product feed update could cost as little as £100 a month. It is a small investment to make but one which will make a huge difference to their online revenue,” he said.