UK online retail sales had a strong start to the new year with double-digit growth of 15% last month (excluding travel), more than doubling the 7% growth recorded in January 2015, according to the British e-commerce association IMRG.
The strong result suggests that the negative impact of Black Friday discounts on Q1 sales growth in 2015 “has not been repeated this year”, the association said.
“If the positive performance is continued, it may be that the Black Friday effect was a blip last year due to the surprising scale of the event, or it could be that other factors – such as uncertainty around the election and strength of Sterling – also played a significant role in supressing growth in early 2015,” IMRG explained.
The IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index in January recorded positive performances across many individual sectors including clothing and electrical items both of which posted strong sales of 15% in January year-on-year. For the electrical sector, this represents the highest annual growth since November 2014.
The travel sector reflected “the usual annual peak” in January showing spectacular monthly growth of 188% on December 2015 and double-digit growth of 11% year-on-year.
However, not all the sectors had such a strong start to the year. For example, alcohol sales showed the weakest performance during “dry January” since February 2014 falling by 2% on January 2015 and by 65% in monthly comparison with December 2015.
The Index also highlighted the growing performance disparity between sales made via smartphones and tablet devices – with annual growth for tablets up just 13% compared to 96% growth for smartphones (only 26% in 2015).
Tina Spooner, chief information officer, IMRG said: “The latest Index results reveal a strong start to the year for the UK online retail industry, with annual growth reaching the second-highest rate recorded over the past 14 months. The 15% growth in January is more than double the growth rate observed in the same month last year, when the knock-on effect of Black Friday continued into the early part of 2015, and is ahead of IMRG and Capgemini’s 2016 growth forecast.
“The divergence between the use of mobile devices is becoming increasingly apparent – growth rates via smartphones surged 96% year-on-year, with confidence in using them for shopping most likely boosted by the design shift toward larger screens, together with improved retailer mobile sites. Conversely, growth in sales completed on tablet devices fell below the overall online growth rate for the first time since we started tracking it – up 13% from January last year,” she added.
Richard Tremellen, Retail Insight and Data Specialist, Capgemini, highlighted the positive January performance as a strong indicator for growing consumer confidence.
