E-commerce accounts for 10 percent of retail spend in February

Monday, March 26, 2012 - 12:03 by Simon Crisp

A tenth of the money which was splashed out in the retail sector by consumers last month was spent shopping online, according to a report published by the Office for National Statistics last week.

This puts e-commerce usage at record levels in February, with weekly online revenues hitting £573.6 million. During the same period in 2011, around £432.6 million was spent every seven days, which is roughly equal to eight per cent of the entire retail market in the UK, so it is clear that 2012 is going to be yet another good year for e-commerce companies.

As a whole, the retail market actually contracted by 0.4 per cent when it comes to the value of the sales made in February, when compared with the rates measured in the previous month.

The resilience of sites offering safe shopping online is clearly a contributing factor to the fall in high street sales, although it cannot be entirely blamed for the reduction in overall retail spending.

Play.com's Adam Stewart spoke out about the changes in the market and pointed out that e-commerce was clearly offering consumers something which cannot be matched at bricks and mortar outlets.

Mr Stewart went on to identify that the growing use of smartphones and tablet computers was making m-commerce a popular pastime, allowing people to browse e-commerce sites and make purchases, regardless of their location.

Play.com itself has experienced an increase in mobile transactions of 100 per cent over the past two years. This is being put down to both the proliferation of smartphone technology and also a growing confidence amongst consumers that shopping through this medium is safe and secure.

As a side effect, the growth in the mobile advertising industry has also been registered, which means m-commerce users can expect future platforms to be funded by marketing.