UK Online Retailing, 2019-2024

UK Online Retailing, 2019-2024

Summary

As shoppers continue to shift away from visiting physical stores and gravitate towards the convenience of shopping via digital channels, UK online spend is set to reach £75bn by 2024, rising 30.4% over the next five years. Online Channel is forecast to account for 19.8% of UK retail spend by 2024, with Clothing & Footwear remaining the largest product sector as retailers continue to provide a seamless online shopping experience.

Clothing specialists continue to develop their online proposition with many players now offering easy to use credit options like Clearpay and Klarna’s buy now, pay later, driving online conversion and giving shoppers another reason to choose the online channel over stores. Often first to market with tech developments, ASOS last week launched its ‘See my fit’ augmented reality tool which enables browsers to view selected items of clothing on different size models to help with purchase decisions and potentially reduce return rates.

Despite the online channel making up only a small proportion of the Food & Grocery market (7.3% in 2019), this sector will be the biggest contributor in terms of online value growth over the next five years, rising £5.0bn to reach £16.2bn, making it the second largest product category behind Clothing & Footwear. Although just over one third of UK online shoppers have purchased Food & Grocery online in the past 12 months, compared to almost two thirds that have bought Clothing & Footwear online*, food spend is set to rise sharply as shoppers continue to seek convenience, become more comfortable buying a wider range of items and grocers improve fulfilment times.

As growth in physical store sales continues to elude many retailers, particularly in non-food product sectors, investment should be focused online to ensure websites and fulfilment options are constantly improved, in order to remain competitive.

The UK Online Retailing 2019-2024 report offers comprehensive insight and analysis of the online channel in the UK, the main trends and hot issues, major players and consumer shopping behaviour. It also provides forecasts to 2024 across key retail sectors.

Scope

• Spend via online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay (on brand new products only) is set to rise 53.9% between 2019-2024e as consumers look to marketplaces for wide product choice.
• The percentage of online shoppers that have purchased clothing & footwear is 64.7%, by far the highest penetration of all the sectors with greater shopper numbers contributing to clothing & footwear being the biggest sector in terms of online spend.
• Spend via mobile devices is forecast to continue rising rapidly to account for 41.8% of UK online spend by 2024e, as tablet spend declines.

Reasons to buy

• Use our in-depth consumer and market insight to learn about the growth of the different sectors online, and the related drivers and inhibitors for each sector.
• Understand why and how consumers shop online for different products, and their shopping journeys.
• Understand which retailers have the most popular online propositions in each sector.
• Understand average annual spend per head online by demographic, sector and device.