UK e-commerce breaks records in July [BT broadband office]

UK e-commerce breaks records in July

Posted 31 August 2007 at 8:25AM by Simon Dickson in Ecommerce and online payments

Further evidence of the British love affair with e-commerce comes from the Interactive Media in Retailing Group, which says UK online sales in July topped £4 billion, the first monthly total ever to do so. E-commerce is growing at an annual rate of 80%, dwarfing the official 'high street' growth rate of just 3.3%.

IMRG managing director Jo Evans says she was surprised by the strength of July's growth: 'we checked and rechecked the figures. This data is sound. It reveals the extent to which the retail sector is being transformed by frictionless ecommerce. Major brands are bringing on-stream the next generation of slick new internet retailing services, and consumers are flocking to use them.'

July's poor weather may have been a factor, with people preferring to shop from the shelter of their homes, and some (myself included, incidentally) replacing flood-damaged items. Broadband take-up continues to increase, making online shopping a much easier experience; and many new-season catalogues are published during July, which may have given the figures an additional boost. IMRG's data noted a particularly good month for electricals, with clothing and footwear also hitting an all-time high.

It's further encouragement, if you need it, to think seriously about the online channel as an extension of your business: and it's getting easier and easier to add transactional facilities to your company website. Indeed, in case you missed it, you can now add PayPal facilities to your BT Tradespace website. (Yes, even the free ones.)

Tags: bt tradespace, ecommerce, imrg, online shopping, PayPal

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Comments

1. At August 31, 2007 9:52 AM, Shelly Nickol wrote:

I love shopping and while I am partial to online shopping it will never replace going down to the shops for me. The only places I really shop online are catalogues or clothing companies that are only online. My mother on the other hand do a lot more online shopping that I do she has even replaced most of our weekly trips to the supermarket with buying online. Online shopping May be rapidly increasing, but is this having an adverse affect on shops in Retail Parks, Shopping Centres or High Streets? In my opinion no, I like to try an item of clothing on before I buy it, (or at least know that I can exchange it the next day), I like to choose how fresh my food is and so fourth.

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