Christmas 2013 saw a record amount of online shopping, with close to one in five non-food items being bought online in December, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
As well as showing the increasing importance of retailers’ online strategy to sales growth, the monthly figures also suggest that consumer spending provided further momentum to the economic recovery in the final quarter of 2013.
According to the BRC, on a like-for-like basis, retail sales were 0.4 per cent higher in December 2013 than December 2012, while total sales, which included sales at stores that have been open for less than a year, were up 1.8 per cent over the same period.
Meanwhile, the three-month average total growth was 2.2 per cent, against 2.8 per cent for the 12-month period, and online non-food sales grew by 19.2 per cent in December compared with a year earlier, up from 16 per cent in November and was the biggest increase since March 2010.
A spokesperson for the BRC called the month’s figures “a respectable result overall”, saying that they were in line with the organisation’s prediction that Christmas trading in 2013 would reflect that, while confidence levels were higher than the previous year, this was not always matched by more money to actually spend.
However, they added, the surge in the use of tablets and smartphones last year, together with the ever faster delivery times achieved by an increasing number of retailers, have provided a new spur of growth to online shopping.
The survey followed Christmas trading data from UK retailers and reflect the mixed fortunes being reported, with some of the biggest supermarkets showing a drop in sales from bricks and mortar stores, while others reported record figures for the amount customers purchased online.