Online non-food sales rose 9% in June compared to the previous year, and represented 20.6% of total non-food sales that month, according to a BRC-KPMG study.
In the three months to June, online sales of non-food products in the UK grew 9.7% year-on-year while store sales declined 2.2% on a like-for-like basis.
“Online sales growth slowed to 9 per cent this month,” said Helen Dickinson OBE, chief executive, British Retail Consortium. “While lower than last month’s growth it remains a solid performance, considering that June 2015 had recorded the best growth of that year. Online sales grew across all categories except Footwear and increased their share of total non- food sales as stores sales slipped further into negative territory.”
Dickinson added that while online “clearly remains the primary driver of sales growth for UK retailers, shoppers are no longer thinking in channels and are more and more often using both digital and physical stores as part of their customer journey from initial consideration to the actual transaction. Today’s figures re-emphasise the need for physical stores to be a destination for retail experiences rather than specifically and solely for the sales transaction itself.”
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
