Omnichannel retailers prosper as UK online sales soar
Following the UK’s first full month under coronavirus lockdown, online sales hit a 10 year high in April, up 23.8% year-on-year.
After March’s poor performance, this represented a month-on-month rebound of +28.2%.
IMRG and Capgemini research, which tracks the online sales performance of over 200 retailers, shows that the spike was overwhelmingly driven by omnichannel ventures.
Also of interest: Coronavirus outbreak increases disparities in UK retail sector
After recording higher growth than pureplays for the first time in a year in March, omnichannel players continue to benefit from consumers’ changing shopping habits – with sales up 35% versus their online only counterparts’ more modest rise of 8.3%.
“April’s data shows that demand is following a very logical pattern – with stores closed, people who would usually shop in physical locations have no choice but to switch online. Hence it is the omnichannel retailers who are securing the very strong growth at the moment, though whether it will be enough to entirely offset the loss of sales from those stores seems unlikely,” says Andy Mulcahy, Strategy and Insight Director, IMRG.
This is only true for some categories, however, Even with stores closed, online growth for omnichannel clothing retailers was down 17.5%.
“The demand just isn’t there at the moment. When that demand will return is a big question for clothing retailers. If they reopen stores – and take their staff out of furlough, bringing all the costs back into the business – but their customers don’t return quickly, there could be a very difficult period coming indeed,” Mulcahy concludes.
