January 24, 2008 | Thursday
£46 billion spent online in 2007
By Jackie Danicki - Blogger in Marketing |News |Online Sales
In the same week that the European Interactive Advertising Association released its findings that eight out of ten European web users have bought a product or service online, another major report brings even more good news for companies selling on the internet.
The IMRG Capgemini E-retail Sales Index is a stats anorak’s dream, giving full year online sales data for 2007, details of Christmas online sales, and a granular look at breakout sectors of growth. Here are the highlights:
- £46 billion (yes, billion) was spent online in 2007 - that’s more than double what was spent online in 2006 (£30.2 billion)
- Online sales doubled year-on-year in the three month run up to Christmas
- Web sales for Q4 were up from £9.61 billion in 2006 to £15.2 billion in 2007
- More than 15 per cent of all UK retail sales were made online in 2007
What is even more astonishing is to ponder what isn’t measured: Just how many high street sales were the direct result of online price comparison and research? In the age of the “promiscuous customer” who will happily go from shop to shop - offline or online - gathering information and weighing up options, then take their money wherever they feel it is best spent (often online, but not always), we can only guess at what percentage of offline sales were made because of the web.
But this also means that online retailers must take as seriously as possible how their web presence is working for them. As James Roper, CEO of IMRG, puts it in the report:
Consumer behavior has changed dramatically over the last few years and really is the driving force behind many of the changes in the e-retail landscape. If retailers intend to be part of the future retail scene, they need to develop a robust online presence and that is getting harder as the sophistication of channel increases and customers expectations rise.
Meanwhile, the British Retail Consortium measures things a bit differently. They don’t consider purchases such as holidays to count as retail spending, and thus came up with the claim that online spending accounts for only 6 per cent of all UK retail sales.
Whether the BRC considers what you sell to be retail or not, what matters is whether or not you are selling as much as you could be. If eight out of ten European web users are buying online, what steps are you taking to ensure that as many of them as possible are buying from you?
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