Another major milestone has been reached in the growth of online shopping: £300bn has been spent online since the launch of the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index in April 2000.
The Index uses real sales data from retailers to track the performance of the UK e-retail market.
The annual value of the market has grown from £0.8bn in 2000 to £58.8bn in 2010. IMRG forecast that the total market will be worth £69bn in 2011.
The strongest performing sectors continue to be clothing and electricals, with both recording consistently strong growth since the Index launched.
The clothing sector has grown 3,245% since launching in February 2001, following a similar trend to the total e-retail market in terms of its growth pattern.
The electricals sector has grown 996% since February 2002 and continues to show consistently strong growth, especially during the last 3–4 years. Beer, wine & spirits is another sector that has seen increasingly rapid growth in recent years, with overall growth since February 2002 reaching 825%. This sector sees seasonal spikes in November and December, with the size of this spike growing at an increasing rate.
James Roper, CEO at IMRG, said: “An estimated £300bn has been spent online in the UK during the 11 years that our Index has been tracking the e-retail market, and with around £70bn estimated to be spent this year, we expect that figure to easily double within four years. It has been interesting to see which sectors have performed the best in this time, with clothing and electricals being the true success stories for the online market, and beer, wine and spirits also proving to be highly popular products for online shoppers. With 80% of the UK population now online and Government plans to extend the speed and geographical reach of broadband services, we anticipate a continued acceleration of growth irrespective of the economic situation as a whole.”
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