One fifth of retail spending to take place online by 2024
Almost 20% of all retail sales are expected to take place online by 2024 with the value set to reach £75bn; the figure is set to move up to 30.4% in the following five years.
The extent of the concumers' shift to online has been revealed by GlobalData's latest report UK Online Retailing 2019-2024. The report also reveals that clothing & footwear is the largest online retail product sector as retailers strive to offer a seamless online and offline experience by offering services such as flexible payments and online fit tools.
Sofie Willmott, Lead Retail Analyst at GlobalData, commented: “Clothing specialists continue to develop their online proposition with many players now offering easy to use credit options like Clearpay and Klarna’s buy now, pay later, driving online conversion and giving shoppers another reason to choose the online channel over stores. Often first to market with tech developments,
"ASOS last week launched its ‘See my fit’ augmented reality tool which enables browsers to view selected items of clothing on different size models to help with purchase decisions and potentially reduce return rates.”
ASOS See My Fit
Despite the online channel making up only a small proportion of the food & grocery market (7.3% in 2019), this sector will be the biggest contributor in terms of online value growth over the next five years, rising £5bn to reach £16.2bn, making it the second largest product category behind clothing & footwear.
Although just over one third of UK online shoppers have purchased food & grocery online in the past 12 months, compared to almost two thirds that have bought clothing & footwear online (based on 10,000 online shoppers), food spend is set to rise sharply as shoppers continue to seek convenience, become more comfortable buying a wider range of items and grocers improve fulfilment times.
Willmott concluded: “As growth in physical store sales continues to elude many retailers, particularly in non-food product sectors, investment should be focused online to ensure websites and fulfilment options are constantly improved, in order to remain competitive.”
