April’s results suggest online retail boom is over
At a time of rising inflation, online retail sales fell -12% Year-on-Year (YoY) in April. That is according to the latest IMRG Capgemini Online Retail Index, which tracks the online sales performance of over 200 retailers. With last month’s results representing the first time in two years that the Index was not skewed by pandemic lockdown comparisons, expectations for a return to pre-Covid patterns had been high. However, the results showed there was no actual growth in online sales – with last month’s performance simply mirroring April 2021’s growth of +12%. This mirroring was also evident in the weekly results, with growth in week four of April 2022, for example, at -10% against +10% for the same week the year previous.
Looking at this more closely, there are signs of the current economic situation exerting an influence on the average basket value (ABV), which reached an all-time high at £146 in April, £3 above the previous pandemic record set in August 2021. With rising supply chain costs feeding through into product prices and cost of living increases showing no signs of slowing down, shoppers are taking longer to make purchase decisions and retailers are having to rely more heavily on discounting to stimulate activity – particularly for smaller goods. However, the ABV also indicates that many consumers are still willing to purchase larger ticket items, or are buying in bulk in order to get better value.
At a category level, after their highs of 2021 electricals and beauty have seen poor performances for a few months now (-17.8% and -27% respectively during April 2022). The ABV in electricals has also been falling for several weeks, suggesting that retailers in that category might be discounting very heavily. On the flip side, clothing is an example of a category seeing good post-pandemic sales, recording +4.2% YoY growth in April – a solid result against huge growth of +51.4% in April 2021.
Andy Mulcahy, strategy and insight director, IMRG: “Throughout the pandemic, there was much speculation as to what the ‘new normal’ might be once everything has settled down again. After two years of huge volume increases online, it would seem that growth is now over – this is not just a reflection of the pandemic effectively coming to an end in many people’s minds, the new phase of higher costs and bills is creating very unpredictable patterns of behaviour among shoppers. Many retailers report sluggish response to activity and erratic spending, and it feels like this is only the start of a tough year for UK shoppers.”
Lucy Gibbs, senior manager, retail lead for analytics & AI, Capgemini: “Demand for certain categories became less predictable during the pandemic due to external factors and changes in behaviours and lifestyles. As we start to move on, we are seeing some signs of a return to norm, however it is clear that shifting priorities around new cost pressures and economic factors will also influence future demand patterns. If we project forward the pre-pandemic trends we can infer which categories are still overperforming; home and garden and health and beauty are still well ahead of where we would expect them to be despite tracking negative YOY growth for this month. Clothing is approximately in line with where we would expect, picking up after losing out in the pandemic.
