Ecommerce sales took a hit in January as the majority of product categories saw a dip due to lower demand.
Online sales dropped 7% during the period, making it a 3.5% fall from the same time last year, the IMRG Online Retail Index found.
The January sales were the second-lowest since the lockdown comparison period back in early 2022.
Ecommerce is expected to pull in 0% year-on-year growth during 2024, as it takes a hit after growing during the pandemic, according to the business.
Online sales were down 9.4% year-on-year during January’s payday week, from a 11.1% decline during the same time last year.
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IMRG strategy and insight director Andy Mulcahy said: “Up until around 2019, ecommerce was rightly regarded as an industry with high potential, buoyed by the notion that everything was going online, and the high street seemed in terminal decline.
“Around that time, though, the overall growth rate for ecommerce had actually started to head toward flat.”
He added: “The lockdown period then gave us years of data that was heavily skewed, but what we are seeing now is not just a consequence of that any more.
“The economic situation is dire, demand has been impacted and ecommerce feels like it is no longer immune to tough times but is just as vulnerable as retail more generally and other customer-facing industries.”
However, the company’s strategy and insight director added: “A possible bright spot on the horizon: while the economic and geopolitical context is fraught and potentially intensifying, ecommerce has traditionally benefited when technology progresses; new devices, such as the tablet and smartphone, helped push up sales by increasing accessibility to retail sites.”
The news comes after online spend nudged up 3.7% over Christmas as discounting and BNPL were rife.
UK shoppers spent £24.4bn online over the period, with online prices discounted in the range of 11% on average when compared with pre-Christmas season levels.
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