Although there was some evidence that the relaxation of lockdown rules impacted online retail in July when growth fell against the previous month (-10% vs June), overall sales remained strong – recording growth of 28.3% year-on-year.
This is according to the latest IMRG Capgemini Online Retail Index, which tracks the online sales performance of over 200 retailers. It found that while people appeared to initially divert spend away from online the week after some lockdown rules were lifted (commencing 5 July) – resulting in a 10% year-on-year drop in growth compared to the previous week – this decline was short-lived and sales for the following week (commencing 12 July) rose again by 27%.
The disruption of pandemic spending patterns could also be seen at a category level. With external social activities restarting, clothing sales were up for the first time since lockdown began, growing by 0.6% year-on-year in comparison to the previous month’s fall of 6.5%. The warmer weather and increased amount of time outdoors also triggered sales in gardening to soar to 96.9%. Meanwhile, both the health & beauty and electrical categories saw further rises of 38.3% and 62.4% respectively.
Breaking down the results by retailer type, multichannel retailers continued to outperform their online-only counterparts, recording growth of 45.0% versus 8.4%.
Andy Mulcahy, strategy and insight director at IMRG commented: “When non-essential stores reopened in mid-June, there was no discernible impact on online retail demand. On 4 July, we saw a lot more options become available for people to spend their money – pubs, restaurants, theme parks and, most importantly here, holidays. In the week commencing 5 July there was a 10% week-on-week drop in amount spent online compared to the week previous; quite a sharp decline and indicative that people did divert some spend.
“In the week commencing 12 July, year-on-year growth (compared to the same week in 2019) was up 27%, still incredibly strong but the lowest rate recorded since April. So, was this the start of a slowdown in online sales? Possibly not; since then, the extension of quarantine rules forced many to cancel holidays and the last week of July saw growth rates go up again. The difficulties some business sectors are having in coming out of lockdown may mean online retail growth remains very high over a longer period.”
