{"id":456,"date":"2006-01-22T18:34:00","date_gmt":"2006-01-22T18:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwilson.me.uk\/blog\/2006\/01\/phenomenal-growth-in-uk-e-commerce.htm"},"modified":"2007-03-16T10:20:06","modified_gmt":"2007-03-16T10:20:06","slug":"phenomenal-growth-in-uk-e-commerce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2006\/01\/phenomenal-growth-in-uk-e-commerce.htm","title":{"rendered":"Phenomenal growth in UK e-commerce"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every year, it seems that retailers put out dire warnings of falling sales on the high street and Christmas 2005 was no exception. We’ve grown used to retailers starting the “new year” sales in late December (and I was amazed to hear a friend admitting to being one of the many reported to be queuing outside Next<\/a> when their sale started in the early hours of the morning on 27 December 2005). BHS<\/a> was discounting in mid-December this year – I bought one item at a 60% discount (reduced to half price from \u00c2\u00a312 and then another 20% off making it just \u00c2\u00a34.80 on the day I happened to be in town and making my final Christmas purchases).<\/p>\n

It strikes me that falling high-street sales are only half the picture, and last Friday’s BBC Working Lunch<\/a> programme confirmed that for me, outlining some amazing statistics on Internet shopping growth over the Christmas period, with online sales up 50% on the previous year to a total of \u00c2\u00a35bn in the 10 weeks up to Christmas 2005.<\/p>\n

Whether or not people really are deserting the high street (I suspect it is all hype designed to get us into the shops), the Internet has become a core part of our lives (and therefore a significant channel to market for retailers) – unfortunately, not everyone is ready to take advantage of this.<\/p>\n

In fact, according to Working Lunch, if you look at the growth in UK online shopping as a whole the e-commerce market has grown 2600% from \u00c2\u00a387m in April 2000 to \u00c2\u00a32.26bn in December 2005. Some high street retailers (e.g. Boots<\/a>) are now taking more business through their website than even their largest brick and mortar stores (up 40% in Q3 2005 alone).<\/p>\n

For those who doubt that people really do use the Internet, research by Forrester<\/a> indicates that 33% of of people enjoy spending time online. Working Lunch reported that when asked “which of the following do you enjoy doing in your leisure time?” the results came back as follows:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Listening to music (60%).<\/li>\n
  2. Watching films (54%).<\/li>\n
  3. Walking (47%).<\/li>\n
  4. Travelling (45%).<\/li>\n
  5. Gardening (41%).<\/li>\n
  6. Restaurants\/bars (35%).<\/li>\n
  7. Surfing the Internet (33%).<\/strong><\/li>\n
  8. Watching TV soaps (31%).<\/li>\n
  9. Sightseeing (29%).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    (Maybe I’m not such a geek after all – I enjoy 8 out of those 9 activities, only finding watching TV soaps to be a bit dull).<\/p>\n

    To those who think that not that many people have fast enough Internet connections to take advantage of e-commerce sites, think again – the UK is third in a table of European online access levels and second when looking at how many people shop online regularly – both figures well above the European average:<\/p>\n