U.K. Online Sales Surge In January
February 22, 2008 | by Christopher Nickson
Figures show that online sales were higher than any previous January, with an average of $150 for every person in Britain.
The economy is supposed to be slowing down, but you couldn’t really prove it by online sales. According to the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), the industry body that monitors these things, in Britain online spending was hitting records.
The BBC reports that Brits spent about $9 billion online last month, which is a staggering rise of 75% over January 2007. The bulk seems to have been on clothes and electrical goods, which both saw a rise of around a third on the same time a year earlier.
Anthoula Madden, vice-president at IMRG Capgemini UK's consumer products and retail team, said,
"The index shows that January sales are as large a phenomenon online as they are on the high street, with the overall online market continuing to show strong growth. The high growth in electricals and clothing suggests that much of this spending is being driven by shoppers treating themselves to the items missing from their Christmas stockings."
Using an index based on around 60 online retailers, the figures suggest that the growth in sales volume over the last three months is at its highest since January 2003, and stands as more than twice that of last year.
Apart from the surge in clothes and electricals, health and beauty items experienced an 18% growth, with beers, wines and spirits rising 9%.
Post Your Comment...Comments
Comment on this article
Please keep your comments relevant to this article. Email addresses are not displayed, they are only required to verify you are human.
When you submit your comment, an email will be sent to your email address with a confirmation link. Once you have clicked on that confirmation link your comment will be posted.
HTML is not allowed.
RSS Feed
Be the first to comment on the article!