Despite the promise of in-person shopping, online retail sales continued to show strong growth in March, rising by +71.7% Year-on-Year (YoY) according to the latest IMRG Capgemini Online Retail Index, which tracks the online sales performance of over 200 retailers. With last March coinciding with the start of lockdown, however, this growth must be put in the context of the resulting sales spiral, which saw overall growth sink to just +3.0% YoY.
At a category level, last month’s results are also reflective of trends witnessed in March 2020. Clothing had another good month (+75.9% YoY) as people began to ready their wardrobes for social occasions being put back in the diary – but this was measured against a plummet of -18.9% this time last year. Meanwhile, two of the past year’s strongest performers saw a slight slowdown in their stellar trajectories, with electricals and health & beauty recording only +78.5% (compared to a high of +206.6%) and +46.5% growth respectively.
Garden yet again emerged as one of the category winners, with sales rising by +120.3% YoY as the easing of lockdown restrictions began to open gardens to guests for the first time this year, and consumers prepare for the sunnier weather. This performance is made even more impressive because it compares to already high growth figures of +224.6% for March 2020.
Beers & wines was the only category to record negative growth, with sales slumping to -6.7% YoY; again however, this tracks against figures of +105.7% for March 2020 as it seems the nation turned to alcohol to get over the shock of lockdown.
Matthew Walsh, Director of Data and Retail, IMRG: “Online retail is poised for turbulent months ahead as lockdown restrictions ease and social plans become reality. That said, the ‘unlocking’ of physical stores had little immediate impact on the online retail market last year – in fact, we saw a one-month gap between the reopening of non-essential high street shops and restaurants/bars. It was only once bars opened and the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme arrived that online growth started to fall. A similar one-month gap could be expected for 2021. It will certainly be interesting to find out if pent up demand changes the trading balance or if we will see online retail have breathing space until May.”
