Le sigh

Research quantifies the correlation between bad weather and the subsequent rise in e-commerce sales, says WebProNews.

The research comes from Hitwise, which examined how online shopping spiked in the UK during bouts of rain, other forms of uninviting weather and recent changes in the social calendar. Over the US' Memorial Day weekend, which is also a bank holiday for the UK, visits to sites dealing with gardening projects spiked 22 percent.

Sites dealing with travel or weather also saw increases.

For retail sites, traffic went up 17 percent as people, caged in by dreary skies, sought purchases.