Shoppers choose stores to hunt for bargains as online slows in January
25 February 2016
Retail Economics estimates total online sales rose by 10.4 per cent in January, year-on-year, compared with growth of 12.3 per cent in January 2015. Growth was below the 12-month average of 11.3 per cent. While January’s performance is not disappointing, strong total retail sales over the period cannot be solely attributable to online. It appears that consumers were out in force across high streets, shopping centres and retail parks in the search for bargains during the seasonal sales period. Lower online growth may also suggest less post-Christmas discounting online compared with stores. Furthermore, the impact of Black Friday over the last three years may have changed the emphasis on sales and promotions to pre-Christmas, rather than post-Christmas, particularly for online. Nevertheless, stronger footfall across physical channels was supported by the latest data from Springboard which estimated a 1.2 per cent rise in January, the strongest since January 2014. Retail Parks (+5.2 per cent) saw the strongest performance, followed by High Streets (+0.2 per cent) while Shopping Centres were flat. Accordingly, store sales were robust, estimated to have risen by 1.2 per cent in January, outpacing the 0.5 per cent average for the last 12 months.
