December was the best month for U.K. e-commerce in 2019. Online retail sales saw a sharp increase to 9.4% year-on-year growth in December, according to the latest Online Retail Index, jointly published by Capgemini and British e-commerce consortium IMRG.
For the quarter, online sales recorded a growth rate of 11.3%, bucking an overall downward trend in retail.
In the three months to December, overall sales fell by 1.0%, according to the Office of National Statistics.
Even so, December marked a worrying trend for stores and online retailers alike. According to the IMRG report, December sales growth fell sharply versus November, down -20.0% month-on-month, the greatest December decrease since Black Friday first really grabbed widespread attention in the U.K. in 2013.
And even the record sales performance of e-commerce players in November (up 16.4% year-on-year) was not enough to compensate for a 20% month-on-month decline in December.
Overall, the year ended on a somber note for U.K. e-commerce, as the sector recorded its lowest annual growth rate on record with 6.7%.
Online pure-players were the one bright spot amid a struggling sector, according to Lucy Gibbs, managing consultants-retail insights at Capgemini.
“There was a notably stronger performance by pure online only retailers in comparison to the more traditional players, who failed to seize the growth when they perhaps need it most, leading to a total growth of +4.8% this year against last year compared to a more healthy +10.0% for online only, said Gibbs.
“If online retail in 2018 was characterised by strong growth in the first half and weak in the second, 2019 is the year when Black Friday quite possibly papered over retail’s cracks,” commented IMRG’s insights director Andy Mulcahy.
”Demand was low earlier in the year, particularly over the summer, and growth for the year was running at just +4.9% up to October. A solid December, albeit against weak year-on-year growth in 2018, off the back of an explosive November have made the full-year result look much better at 6.7%; lower than our forecast of 9%, but nowhere near as bad as looked a few months’ back.”
Mulcahy also predicted a resurgence of online shopping in the first three months of 2020, due to renewed consumer confidence after Brexit, as well as several major sporting events during the year.
