M-retail: Summertime blues as sales falter
UK online retail sales held steady this August, as shopper spending achieved 12.8% growth year-on-year (YoY), according to the latest IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index. This was in line with the three and twelve month rolling averages of +12.8% and +12.9%, but below the three-month average of +15.3%.
M-retail growth, however, hit an all-time low of 10% YoY. While smartphones came in at 26.7%, it was the lowest growth since September 2014, and a significant drop on last August’s 53.6%. Multi-channel m-retail only just stayed above water with 1% YoY growth, while online-only m-retail was up 15% YoY.
“The main driver of growth in our index over the past few years has been smartphone devices; throughout 2016 sales growth through these devices was typically in the 75-100% range, then in 2017 it gradually slowed down to be in the 40-60% range, then as we’ve entered 2018 it has continued to decline. This is expected, as very high growth cannot usually be sustained for long periods, but in August three points of note happened,” says Andy Mulcahy, Strategy and Insight Director, IMRG.
“The first was that smartphone sales growth was at its lowest rate since September 2014; August 2018 was also the first time it has fallen below the 30% mark since then. The second was that, looking at mobile devices overall (smartphone and tablets combined), growth was at its lowest ever rate since we started tracking it in 2012. And finally, the weak performance seems to be attributed to the multi-channel retailers, who recorded overall mobile device growth of just 1%, while for the online-only retailers it was up 15%.”