The latest analysis from Hitwise shows that internet shoppers in the UK have already started their Christmas shopping .
Searches for "Christmas gifts" have increased 62 per cent in the past week and were up 81% over last year .
The market share of UK visits to sites on the Hitwise UK 100 Retail Index, a list of the top 100 UK retailers, was up 2% last week over the same week in 2005 and up 6% over 2004 .
"Based on our analysis, we expect that visits to retail websites will reach a tipping point this week and will begin their rapid seasonal rise," said Heather Hopkins, vice president of research at Hitwise UK .
"Early signs are good for a strong Christmas online, with retail websites likely to hit the growth rate of eight per cent year-on-year in December ."
Among the top 20 list of items searched for on the Internet was the Nintendo DS.
UK internet searches for Nintendo is likely to be a hit this Christmas than any other leading games console .
Searches in the UK for 'Nintendo DS Lite' and 'Playstation 3' have tripled in the past three months, while searches for 'Nintendo DS’ doubled .
Online searches for video games were also popular. Casino Royale, James Bond, Xbox games and Spiderman 3 were all among the top terms sending visits to video and games websites for online searches last week .
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