Online sales soar as retail stumbles
25 May 2005
Online shopping in the UK has boomed since February, with the e-retail market almost tripling, from 13.4 per cent to 30 per cent.
Figures from trade body IMRG show that 22 million UK consumers bought goods online during April, spending a total of £1.4 billion.
Sales on the British high street have dropped by 4.2 per cent since February, suggesting that consumers are finding internet shopping increasingly convenient.
IMRG chief executive James Roper said: "UK consumers know that many High Street retailers have for years enjoyed very high profit margins while providing mediocre service and they still have the impression that they are being ripped off by cartels using unscrupulous business managers.
"The internet is trouncing them by exposing their scams and enabling consumers to quickly and easily compare offers. Consumers can't be fooled anymore. They are voting with their keyboards for the convenience of shopping online."
IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) predicts that online shopping will grow by a further 320 per cent by 2010. Seven per cent of all retail currently takes place online and IMRG predicts that it will increase to 20 per cent, or £60 billion a year, by 2010.
Bonny Brown, director of research at Keynote Systems, which has conducted a study into eight major UK e-commerce sites, said: " UK consumers are first and foremost driven by cost; they expect websites to undercut High Street store prices, and if they don't, they're likely to look elsewhere."
The study revealed that Amazon came top in a poll of overall performance by online stores, followed by Comet, eBay, Argos and Marks and Spencer. The survey also found that forcing people to register before they could make a purchase annoyed 27 per cent of online shoppers, while 20 per cent wanted more transparency when it came to comparing items for sale and 19 per cent found inadequate customer ratings or reviews a problem.
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