UK retailers step up their ecommerce, mcommerce budgets

To keep up with the growing demand of online shoppers, U.K. retailers plan to allocate nearly 25 percent of their IT budgets to improve their ecommerce and mobile commerce platforms, according to a new report from Martec International and sponsored by BT Expedite.

The top 100 U.K. retailers plan to increase their budgets from 17 percent in 2010 to 23 percent this year to address these needs. As a result, U.K. retailers plan to upgrade their ecommerce infrastructure opposed to in-store systems.

"Many retailers are struggling to keep pace with the rapidly changing requirements of multichannel operations with legacy systems slowing them down," said Brian Hume, managing director at Martec International. "Replacing these systems is vital for gaining competitive advantage."

Also, 16 percent of the retailers involved in the study use mcommerce platforms, which is an increase of 5 percent from last year.

One area of U.K. ecommerce that continues to thrive is the video game market. According to research firm Newzoo, the market expected to reach £3.6 billion this year and increase 2 percent in 2012.