ONS retail figures reveal it’s going to be a ‘digital Christmas’ right across the UK
Today’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) retail sales figures for September showed the much-heralded resurgence in retail sales continued as overall spending rose 3.4% year-on-year.
Online sales had the biggest growth again year-on-year, up 53%. Leading the online charge were department stores’ online sales. September was the month pre-orders opened for the Play Station 5 and X Box series X, leading to an 88% boost in department stores’ online sales year-on-year.
ParcelHero’s head of consumer research, David Jinks, MILT, is presenting a webinar on the impact of Covid on the High Street for senior mail and express executives on Thursday, Post&Parcel Live. He says that the early ripples of the second Covid wave during September failed to slow retail’s fightback, although local lockdowns in October might well see a marked decrease in high street footfall.
Says David: ‘These figures are a boost to High Street stores as shoppers prepare to decide how they will shop this Christmas. Even so, despite a slight fall of -1.2 against last month, online’ s 53% growth points the way. Scotland’s National clinical director, Jason Leitch, got a lot of flak yesterday for stating Scots should prepare for a digital Christmas but these figures reveal that online sales will soar throughout the entire UK.
‘Sales between July-September were up 17.7% which is heartening. Department stores’ 6% online jump in one month was notable. An amazing 30.8% of all department store sales in September were online. Not every month will see pre-ordering open for two major new games consoles, but it does point the way to a digital Christmas this year.
‘To register – free of charge – to attend the Post&Parcel Live online conference visit: https://www.postandparcel.live/
