Play.com reported sales up 24% year-on-year over Christmas, thanks to strong sales of Take That's The Circus, the Mamma Mia DVD and the video game Call Of Duty. The company said that revenue was "strong" across all categories. At its festive peak, the store processed 1,000 orders per minute.

Amazon.co.uk reportedly received orders for more than 1.4m items on its busiest day of the festive period, according to The Bookseller, at a rate of 16 items per second.

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