ParcelHero: Britain’s retail brands must truly embrace omnichannel sales

Shoppers may never return to the High Street after lockdown, warns UK home delivery specialist ParcelHero, as March ONS retail sales results show e-commerce sales rose 12.5% YOY in the wake of the Covid-19 epidemic.

ParcelHero predicted on 4 March, three weeks before the lockdown, that the coronavirus outbreak would result in online sales snatching a record amount of the overall retail market. ParcelHero claims this will significantly hasten the ongoing demise of the High Street unless drastic steps are taken by retailers.

Today’s figures from ONS showed a massive -5.7% decline in the overall amount spent by shoppers compared to February, the steepest drop since the ONS started predicting figures. In contrast, online sales rose to grab 22.3% of all sales.

ParcelHero’s Head of Consumer Research, David Jinks MILT says: “The Covid-19 outbreak will be an extinction level event for the High Street, wiping out many fashion and department store giants, unless brands embrace omnichannel – integrated High Street and online sales – as never before. The value of clothing sales in non-food stores crashed by -35.5% month-on-month, for example.

“Britain’s big retail brands must truly embrace omnichannel sales, with a completely integrated online and in-store experience, once social distancing measures are relaxed. Otherwise, Britain’s shoppers may simply lose the habit of visiting stores. A number of online retailers, particularly in the groceries sector, were woefully ill-prepared for the scale of growth at the beginning of the lockdown. This didn’t make a great impression on people attempting to buy groceries online for the first time. Gradually, however, many stores got their online acts together. The result is that, during March, many new shoppers developed a taste for home food deliveries and for many other products  – and the concern is many may never go back.”