Online retailers have been found to be more optimistic about their business prospects over the next 12 months than high street operators.

According to the small and medium sized business surveyed by web hosting specialist 34SP.com, over three quarters of online retailers say that they are optimistic about a rise in their sales activity over the next year compared to just over a quarter of high street businesses.

Both online and high street businesses were asked about their thoughts of the current state of the UK economy. Four out of ten high street businesses said they felt it is ‘bad’ with just under a third of online businesses saying they felt the same.

Looking ahead to the economic landscape in a year’s time, both sets of businesses said they thought the economy would be in a healthier state, although only online businesses think that this will lead to more business activity.

Daniel Foster, technical director of 34SP.com, says that online retailers feel much better placed to take advantage of an improving economic climate.

“Although both e-commerce and high street businesses expect to see a significant improvement in the state of the UK economy over the next 12 months, online retailers feel more confident that this will feed through to stronger business performance.

“This will inevitably be due in part to the extra costs that brick and mortar businesses have to meet, but also because of the noticeable shift in the numbers of people choosing to shop online rather than visit the UK high streets.”