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Online retail grows at 13.3% during recession
Online spending growing is forecast to grow by £2.4 billion in 2009 and is proving to be a star performer in the recession
Verdict has released a report, UK e-Retail 2009, which contains some thoughtful analysis and insight:
* The online market will expand by 13.3% over 2009, driven by the continued increases in the number of internet shoppers and higher expenditure per head. This follows on from 2008 when there was a 1.0% increase in internet users — to 34.4m — and an 18.1% increase in online shoppers —to 26.7m— with shoppers spending an average of 5.8% more in comparison to 2007.
* "The major factor behind this outperformance of wider retail is the online channel’s possession of a number of counter-recessionary characteristics. Internet prices are frequently cheaper than they are in physical stores and shoppers are able to more easily search out bargains, including second-hand goods. Moreover, as a method of shopping, it is disproportionately popular with the more affluent, and therefore more resilient, AB shopping class. For this increasingly time-pressed group, making effective use of their limited leisure time is of the utmost importance. Indeed, Verdict’s report revealed that the AB group is now responsible for a massive 56.8% of all online spending."
* Online growth in 2008 was also the smallest rise in the channel’s sales since the dotcom bubble burst in 2002: "with the expansion in market capacity slowing, retailers are inevitably going to find themselves having to compete much harder against their rivals in order to achieve the same levels of growth that they have previously become accustomed to."
More details & commentary at Retail Technology.
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