Statistics Show Online Shopping Is Still at Record Levels

Thursday, July 9, 2020 - 16:04 by Graham Miller

New figures from IMRG indicate that although high street shops across the UK opened again last month, consumer spending remains refocused on safe shopping online, with the e-commerce market growing by 33.9 per cent in June this year compared to the same period in 2019.

Different product categories enjoyed varying levels of interest from consumers at a time when lockdown measures were being eased, with the sales of electrical goods almost doubling and alcoholic beverage sales rising by close to 80 per cent.

With a 72 per cent year-on-year increase in the sales of health and beauty products, the return to partial normality was clearly having an impact on the products consumers were choosing, with lockdown having left this particular category in the doldrums for months as people had little reason to leave the house or look their best.

The only area which remained in dire straits was fashion, as online sales were down by 6.5 per cent year on year, according to Internet Retailing. Footwear was especially hard hit, with sales dropping by almost a fifth.

Retailers that operate both online and off were in the best position to stimulate growth last month, analysts revealed.

Study spokesperson Lucy Gibbs said that overall the move towards e-commerce so far in 2020 is forming habits that will be difficult to shake now that the high street is back up and running. Even so, she said that the coming weeks and months would be informative in terms of revealing just how comprehensively consumers had adopted an e-commerce-first approach to shopping.

In general industry experts are reluctant to make predictions about how long the significant spike in online spending will last for, although the expectation is that in the long term the double-digit growth seen so far will subside.