THE ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN may be hitting the high street stores, but online retailers are still sitting pretty, according to price comparison site Uswitch.com.

While UK retail sales fell 3.9 per cent in June, online shoppers spent a record £26.5 billion in the first half of 2008, accounting for around a fifth of all retail sales.

Uswitch reckons we now spend an average of 1.6 hours a week shopping online, which is more than we spend downloading music.

The growing move to online shopping may be due to the ridiculously changeable British summer, but it seems that we're also convinced that better bargains can be found in corners of cyberspace.

Apparently we're also trying to avoid using the car and paying for petrol, duty, road tax, congestion charges, parking charges and the governments new 'you still have some money left that we haven't taken off of you' tax.

"With less spending money than ever, higher petrol prices and busier lifestyles, it makes perfect sense for consumers to turn to the internet to fulfil their shopping needs," said Steve Weller, a spokesman at Uswitch.

"The Internet makes it easy to shop around at maybe 40 or 50 different stores in one go to make sure that we are getting the best deals."

Books are the most popular things bought online, followed by clothing, DVDs and video games, airline tickets and electronic equipment. µ