Subdued consumer spending due to Brexit and political uncertainty looks set to lead to the online retail sector having one of its weakest festive periods on record.
IMRG is forecasting that online sales during this year’s Black Friday will grow just 2-3%, with a “very real possibility” they could be flat. Meanwhile, it is predicting that growth in December will come in at only 1-2%.
Andy Mulcahy, strategy and insight director at IMRG, commented: “It won’t have escaped many people’s notice that 2019 has been a pretty tough year for retail. The problems on the high street are well documented, but online sales growth has been very subdued too.
“At the start of the year, IMRG predicted that the online retail market would grow by 9% in 2019. With nine months’ worth of data now in, the year-to-date figure (Jan-Sep in 2019 vs same period in 2018) is currently sitting at 4.9%. Now we are well and truly into the peak trading period of the year, where many retailers expect to make around a quarter of their annual sales in just two months, what are the chances that Black Friday – and Christmas more broadly – are going to bring a turnaround in fortunes?
“In short, it’s difficult at this point to see how the peak trading period is going to be anything other than weak from a revenue perspective, and may potentially even be completely flat.”
