ONE of East Lancashire's best-loved tourist attractions has transformed itself from a textile mill to a "virtual mall" thanks to the internet.

Oswaldtwistle Mills shopping village, home to more than 75 shops plus leisure and tourist attractions, has teamed up with a Blackburn internet firm to provide a service which lets shoppers visit all the shops in the complex online, then buy products at one virtual "checkout."

Bosses at the attraction, which boasts more than one million visitors each year, is hoping the online shop will boost sales.

And eventually it is hoped that five per cent of the centre's turnover, currently standing at £9million, will come from internet sales alone.

Boyd Hargreaves, managing director of Oswaldtwistle Mills, which was this year voted Best Market Mill/Factory Outlet in the UK in a set of national awards, said: "This business has seen constant growth since we started and online trading will give us another boost. It will also allow us to offer another service to our valued concessions."

He added: "As Oswaldtwistle Mills cannot be replicated in its physical form anywhere else in the UK, the new online format gives us the chance to reach a much wider audience."

Oswaldtwistle Mills opened 15 years ago in a former mill - Moscow Mill, Colliers Street - and in 2004 last year reported a record-breaking 1.2million visitors.

In nearly 80 retail outlets within the mill selling everything from pear drops, toys and local produce to crafts, clogs and tuxedos.

When bosses decided to make shopping at the mill available online at www.o-mills.co.uk, the Blackburn firm charged with the task, eBusiness UK, had to find a way to make it possible for browsers to look at stock from all the outlets, but then pay for all the goods at the same time.

Kam Kothia, managing director of eBusiness UK, said: "It took a long time to develop, refine and field test the eShopping.mall software, but the potential for this technology is tremendous.

"The order is then broken down electronically and relayed to each individual shop, which processes its part of the order and dispatches the goods.