While High Street business might not be so hot, online sales at M&S have reportedly increased by 34% in the year to the end of March 2009. At the same time, the giant retailer claimed its sales now account for 5.3% of the UK’s on-line clothing market, a jump of almost 1% on 2008.

So it seems that the company’s fall in pre-tax profits to £704m, down from £1bn, could have been so much worse without the on-line sales boost. For while on-line sales were up, M&S witnessed a drop in food and general merchandise sales in-store with a concluding overall sales value rise of only 0.4%, when compared to the previous year.

Yet more evidence, it seems, of the ever increasing power and worth of on-line retailing.