Online sales set to grow by 16% in the UK, with average spend of £59 a time
Online sales in Europe are expected to rise by 18 per cent to £131.2 billion this year, figures from RetailMeNot and the Centre for Retail Research found, with UK, France, and Germany expected to account for the bulk of this.
The UK is predicted to see a 16 per cent growth, and is expected to account for more than a third (34 per cent) of all online retail sales in the eight European markets surveyed in 2014.
Giulio Montemagno, SVP of international at RetailMeNot, said: “While the e-commerce sector is continuing to grow rapidly, we are starting to see the German, the UK and the US markets mature as shopping online becomes a commonplace activity. Today, growth is being mainly driven by an increase in the frequency of consumers shopping online and spending more money through online channels while in previous years ecommerce growth came primarily from an ever-growing number of first time online shoppers.”
The study, which includes phone interviews of 100 major retailers and 9,000 consumers, reveals that most consumers expect to shop online at least once a month in 2014, with the average European user spending £59 a time, and making an average of 18 purchases a year.
Throughout 2014, European shoppers are expected to spend £749 online, an increase of 18 per cent compared to 2013, while American shoppers are expected to spend £1,106 online, on average.
“In 2014, we are expecting to see online sales across Europe grow at a rate that is 11.9 times faster than in-store sales. In the UK, online retail is expected to increase by 15.8 per cent this year while the offline segment will grow by only 2.4 per cent,” Montemagno added.
“With such a competitive retail environment it’s more important than ever that retailers look to mobile devices and the web to incentivise shoppers to make purchases online and in-store. Successful retailers will consider the Internet not as a threat but as a powerful complement which can help them increase their sales. ”
In the UK, the internet accounted for 12.1 per cent of all retail sales last year.