UK shoppers provide e-commerce boost in January

UK shoppers spent a total of £5.1bn online during January – providing a welcome boost to the parcel carrier industry. The latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index reveal that shoppers spent 21% more than the same time last year – and in total the equivalent of £83 per person.

Tina Spooner, director of information at IMRG said: “While the Index results for January show a very encouraging start to the year for e-retailers, it is important to note this strong growth is on the back of the lowest-ever annual growth recorded in January last year when the e-retail market grew just 4.6%.

“Multichannel retailers performed well last month with sales growing by almost a third compared with January last year, but the pureplays and catalogue retailers saw annual growth dip to 8%, following a year of steady growth in 2010.”

As well as spending more on online shopping, a large proportion of the growth was attributed to a rise in the number of people booking holidays over the Internet (Year-on-year increase of 31%; and a 173% increase on December 2010).

Chris Webster, head of retail consulting and technology at Capgemini added: “January was a very interesting month. As expected we saw a strong growth in the Index following a very weak start last year, but the jump in the travel sector and the gap between multi-channel and pure plays has come as quite a surprise.”