Despite the easing of some lockdown restrictions and the promise of in-person shopping, online retail sales continued to show strong growth in March, rising by 71.7% year-on-year.
That’s according to the latest IMRG Capgemini Online Retail Index, which tracks the online sales performance of over 200 retailers. However, with last March coinciding with the start of the first lockdown, the growth must be put in the context of the resulting sales spiral, which saw overall growth sink to just 3.0% year-on-year.
At a category level, last month’s results are also reflective of trends witnessed in March 2020. Clothing had another good month (+75.9%) as people began to ready their wardrobes for social occasions – but this was measured against a plummet of 18.9% this time last year.
Meanwhile, two of the past year’s strongest performers saw a slight slowdown, with electricals and health & beauty recording only 78.5% (compared to a high of +206.6%) and 46.5% growth respectively.
Garden yet again emerged as one of the category winners, with sales rising by 120.3% as the easing of lockdown restrictions began to open gardens to guests and consumers prepared for the summer.
Beers & wines were the only categories to record negative growth, with sales sliding 6.7%. However, this tracks against growth of 105.7% for March 2020 as after the nation turned to alcohol to get over the shock of lockdown.
Matthew Walsh, Director of Data and Retail at IMRG. Said: “Online retail is poised for turbulent months ahead as lockdown restrictions ease and social plans become reality. That said, the ‘unlocking’ of physical stores had little immediate impact on the online retail market last year – in fact, we saw a one-month gap between the reopening of non-essential high street shops and restaurants/bars. It was only once bars opened and the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme arrived that online growth started to fall.
“A similar one-month gap could be expected for 2021, with the high street due to open this month. It will certainly be interesting to find out if pent up demand changes the trading balance or if we will see online retail have breathing space until May.”
NAM Implications:
- i.e. normal competitive evolution, folks…
- Especially given an Amazonian market-leader setting the pace and unlikely to yield to followers…
