UK online garment sales proportion remains stable in April

13 May '14

4 min read

David McCorquodale, Head of Retail, KPMG, said, “While the Easter break helped the high street, the sunshine proved to be something of a distraction to the online channel, which saw sales slow, with just over 16 per cent of non-food items bought online. While this is a fall on previous months’ levels, it is an expected blip and reminds us that when the sun shines and people are on holiday, they are still attracted by the theatre of the store. Now the Easter bank holiday season has passed, I expect online sales to continue unabated.”

In April, Non-Food Online sales recorded their lowest growth year to date at 11.2%. The slowdown is an expected effect of the Easter break, as people tend to go to the stores for home and family shopping. Despite this, growth remained robust, not far below the 12-month average of 12.7%.

As a result of the Easter effect, the proportion of online sales as a percentage of total Non-Food sales was 16.1%, the lowest recorded since last April. The contribution of Online to Non-Food sales was 0.5 percentage point, the lowest since March 2013.

The fashion categories came bottom of the growth table and recorded their lowest contribution since our monitor began in December 2012. Furniture in contrast recorded its best contribution, while Other Non-Food represented almost 80% of the growth.

We have now cleared distortions due to the timing of holidays and the current months should be easier to read in terms of trend.

According to a new report by Qubit, the average value of each online order in London is £268 compared to just over £100 for internet shoppers around the rest of the country, while the conversion rate is lower, at 2.0% in London compared to 2.3% elsewhere.

British Retail Consortium

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