(Drivebycuriosity) - There is much ado about the allegedly unstoppable rise of e-commerce, but data from the UK show that the advance of online shopping came to an halt - at least in percentages of total retail sales. The image on the top displays the trend in the UK over the last 20 years ( ons.gov.uk). Before 2020 e-commerce gained annually on average about 1.3 percentage points and climbed from 2.8% in February 2007 up to 19.1% in February 2020.
During Covid the rise suddenly accelerated and peaked in January 2021. The pandemic forced many to stay at home, to avoid crowded shops and to buy online. Therefore internet sales jumped up to 37.8% of the total retail sales. But when the pandemic came to an end, people went out again and restarted visiting shops - and e-commerce dropped relatively.
I expected that the pre-Covid trend will restart after a while - just on a lower level. But so far I have been proven wrong. In the recent 12 months the quotient dropped from 26.3% (April 2024) to 25.9% (April 2025).
What are the reasons? There are no reports that could explain the setback, I can only speculate. I suppose that many people had enough from the Covid curfews and enjoy going out even more. Maybe they prefer to go shops - crowded or not - where they can meet & watch other people?
But I believe that the advantages of online shopping - like fast & free deliveries to the home door and huge selections - will get even stronger over time and the upwards trend will return. Time will tell.
No comments:
Post a Comment