Strongest May growth for online retail since 2010
After a positive display from the High Street, the sun was also shining online in May, with UK online retail sales up nearly 20% year on year, according to the latest IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index.
In a month that saw scorching temperatures, a royal wedding, the FA Cup Final, and two bank holidays, this was the highest YoY increase for May since 2010 and the strongest month overall since November 2016.
The celebratory mood was also reflected in a number of the sector results. Here, Footwear and Garden were the real standouts, recording YoY growth of 54.4% and 40.2% respectively. Even more significantly, during the record temperatures of the first bank holiday week Garden sector growth reached an astounding 74%. Meanwhile, with summer holiday season fast approaching, Health & Beauty increased by 23.0%.
Says Bhavesh Unadkat, principal consultant in retail customer engagement, Capgemini:
“May is typically a strong month for retail and that was borne out in the results. UK sunshine over-indexed in May – coming in 18% higher than the last two years – and temperatures have also resumed after the much colder start to 2018. This has clearly created big wins in the seasonal categories such as Garden and Footwear but there is also a certain degree of optimism felt throughout the sectors driven by the Royal Wedding and the FIFA World Cup.
“According to GfK’s overall Consumer Confidence Index consumer confidence is up 2points versus last month, with a positive outlook for the year ahead despite the uncertain economic backdrop. With this in mind, retailers need to maximise the opportunities around the uplift in customer spending and make the most of influential external factors through relevant messaging and offerings to their customers to secure their market share.”
Andy Mulcahy, strategy and insight director, IMRG:
“Growth for the online retail market has been exceptionally strong so far in 2018, with May’s result being the highest for that month in eight years. Things have been tough on the high street recently, though better performance was reported in May – this may have been a blip prompted by the mood of national celebration last month and it’s telling that when physical retail does well, online does even better – recording its highest growth in 18 months in May. It’s becoming increasingly clear that shoppers are favouring online channels over physical ones to a greater degree than they used to, which is accelerating the pace of change for multichannel retailers.
Although there is nothing new in online taking a greater share of sales of course, the question is what happens to physical retail. Traditional shops won’t vanish entirely – there will always be some level of demand for them – but how high streets and other retail spaces evolve more generally in response to lower shopper interest is a matter for some debate.
