After recording the steepest drops in the history of the IMRG Capgemini Online Retail Index for two months in a row, the fall in online retail sales appears to be slowing – down only 9.6% year-on-year in July.
The latest Index, which tracks the online sales performance of over 200 retailers, shows the easing is particularly apparent when looking at the week-on-week breakdown, with the first seven days of July down 14% versus just fall of only 5.5% in the final week.
Other encouraging signs can be seen in the month-on-month figure, where a drop of 4.4% was lower than would be expected between June and July according to pre-pandemic patterns, and in the Average Basket Volume (ABV) which reached its highest total spend for 2021 at £134 – up a staggering 60% against July last year.
At a category level, many continue to report negative year-on-year growth due to the soaring rates recorded in 2020. However, with the removal of restrictions and consumers returning to social gatherings (plus England being in the final of the Euro 2020 football tournament), beers, wines & spirits sales shot up once again by 29.9%. At the other end of the spectrum, health & beauty sales spiralled further into the negative at -36.1% – though week-on-week figures had risen to -9% by the end of July.
Andy Mulcahy, strategy and insight director at IMRG, commented: “In July 2021, month-on-month growth was ahead of where it usually is at this point of the year; with the amount spent online declining-4.4% against June, whereas -8% was typical in 2020 and 2019. For the previous three months, the month-on-month rate has tracked below where it would normally be as shopper spend has been redistributed across other areas following the phased easing of restrictions.
“Perhaps the ‘pingdemic’ has played a role here, as so many people were forced into isolation, but it’s also tempting to suggest that we might be starting to see what the much-feted ‘new normal’ will actually look like from a retail perspective. If that month-on-month measure is starting to plot the established trading patterns that naturally go up and down at various times of year, the question of how much volume will stick online following the pandemic will have been answered.”
NAM Implications:
- Online is here to stay, with pace adjusting to real demand…
- …and still growing a lot faster that alternative routes to consumer.
- Best for all alternative routes to adjust to these realities…
