Great Britain has one more thing in common with the United States, online shopping. People in the UK have taken to shopping on the Internet with great zeal. As many as nine million Brits have begun shopping online in the last year. The popularity of online shopping is actually becoming a problem for some people in the UK namely, employers.

Unfortunately, the bulk of online shopping in the UK is estimated to be done at the place of employment during work hours. And this adds up to a net loss of productivity. Every half hour an employee spends browsing the Internet for bargains results in a half hour loss in the workplace. A half hour may not seem like much but multiply that by the million or so people who shop online at work and you begin to see the enormity of the problem. A conservative estimate is that the cost of this lost productivity is in the neighborhood of billions of pounds, perhaps as many as 7 billion, or nearly 14 million dollars. He estimate is based on the average hourly wage in the UK, which is 25.50 pounds. Thus, a half hour of online shopping costs to an employer 6.25 pounds for work he isn't getting. With the popularity of shopping online growing, employers in the UK loss nearly a billion pounds a week.

Since it is unlikely that online shopping will decline in popularity or that employees will curb their habits voluntarily, there seems to be a need arising for more stringent workplace controls. Just like in the popular novel 1984 by George Orwell, the workplace is becoming increasingly monitored and employees are being watched. Many corporations have called in Information technology consultants to curb this growing problem. He result is that many employee's computers have been outfitted with software programs that either block access to the internet or monitor the sites visited.

An employee may shop to his or her hearts content all week only to have an uncomfortable meeting with a supervisor the following week to discuss work habits. Still, the problem will not entirely resolved by this. Many small firms cannot afford the price tag of a professional I consultant. In addition, some of the programs, like monitoring website visits can only really be useful after the employee has established a trail of pattern of visiting banned websites. Another consideration is that simply installing Internet blocking software can interfere with an employee's legitimate interaction with work related web sites. And, as with all things involving Human Nature, as soon as a remedy is put into place, people will begin to work at getting around it. Perhaps an alternative solution is to offer more employee incentives to govern themselves.

Productivity incentives such as bonuses, gift certificates, even a preferred or free parking place may be enough for employees to knuckle down and use their working hours productively. Also, it is a simple matter to offers employees free, unlimited Internet surfing access during their lunch hours. One thing is certain, the lost in productivity due to online shopping is an expensive trend that should be nipped in the bud to curtail business losses.