Once upon a time shoppers would not trust an online supermarket to deliver the turkey in time for Christmas.

But this year Tesco, Marks & Spencer and other retailers including Amazon are are enjoying a boom in online sales.

According to the latest internet shopping figures, UK consumers spent £123m on the web during November and December.

Amazon was streets ahead of its rivals, however, proving shoppers are now comfortable with the notion of buying books over the net.

One in three of all UK web surfers visited the site during November, according to figures from web research company Jupiter MMXI.

People's reluctance to do their grocery shopping on the internet has also evaporated as more consumers than ever before bought their Christmas turkeys, chocolates and brandy online.

Tesco.com, the leading online supermarket, claimed the lion's share of online cash. It attracted more than 1.3m unique users during November alone.

According to Hitwise, Tesco.com commanded a massive 60% of all visitors to grocery and alcohol sites last week.

The figures showed Sainsbury's lagging behind with a mere 15% sector share. Asda, meanwhile, attracted less than 10%.

The results appear to show, when it comes to food shopping, the trusted brands bring in the customers. The top 10 retail sites were all household names.

John Lewis, long considered one of the most old-fashioned of department stores, made it into the top 10 for the first time.

More than one in four users of online toyshops visited Toys 'R' Us, while Hamley's, the famous London toy store, took a 9% market share.

The most popular online clothes retailer was Next, which commanded a 15% market share.

The little-known underwear retailer, Figleaves.com, also performed well over the past week, while the US gift site, Nordstrom, jumped from 53rd place in the sector rankings to third.

Analysts claimed the change in the public's attitude to shopping online can be attributed to the disappearance of dodgy dot.coms as well as websites becoming more user friendly.

Keynote Systems, a company that measures website performance, said download times on all the main e-commerce sites had been cut.

"At such a busy time as Christmas, online stores need to concentrate on making sure their sites are quick to download," said Olivier Carron, the vice-president of Keynote.

"This encourages shoppers to make purchases as the overall experience is a pleasant one. It would appear from our results that companies are heeding this advice," he added.