UK's eCommerce Gaining On Total Retail Sales
Online sales in the UK reached Stg 1 billion in January 2003, and Stg 900 million in March 2003, in the process comprising 5 to 6 per cent of total retail sales in these two months. Consumers are moving online now that improved transaction methods, fraud avoidance and the availability of broadband are a reality, according to Interactive Media Retail Group (IMRG). In 2003, ôthe collective effect of these improvements will improve consumer confidence in online shoppingö, said IMRG MD, Jo Tucker, while Meta Group VP, Jeffrey Mann, noted that the eCommerce sector was stabilizing now that the novelty was wearing off.UK grocery store, Tesco, which launched its online store, Tesco.com, in summer 1999, is now the largest UK online retailer, with a 60 per cent market share of the online grocery market. Most retailers ôwho sell both online and offline say that their online sales represent between 5 to 10 per cent of their online salesö, Mann says, with Tesco for one, generating Stg 447 million in online sales in 2002. However, IMRG CEO, James Roper, warns that while ômajor retail brands like Tesco, are successfully exploiting the potential of the Internet, those who have failed to embrace online selling, are starting to hemorrhage salesö.
ôA rapidly growing army of small, specialist merchants are competing successfully online with major retail brandsö, Roper says. ôWe are witnessing à the wholesale reinvention of self-service shopping, with the Internet becoming a ôsuper-supermarketö and thousands of SMEs nibbling away at the trade of major brandsö. While a third of UK Internet users are happy to shop or bank online, according to KPMG, eleven per cent had difficulties with online transactions, and five per cent disliked the amount of time needed to complete online payments, but the convenience of online shopping was still a major attraction. Related Links:
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