Pureplays and smartphones are biggest e-tail winners in worst October ever

Online sales in Britain rose 6.2% year-on-year last month, with fashion playing its part in the rise, even if many sales were driven by markdowns. That's according to the latest IMRG Capgemini Online Retail Index, which tracks the online sales performance of over 200 retailers. 

On the plus side, the 6.2% rise was a slightly more positive result than the rolling averages for the last three, six and 12 months (+5%, +4.5%, and +5.1% respectively). But the increase was well below some of the much more impressive rises that we’ve become used to from the online channel in previous years. 

There were pockets of strength, however. For instance, pureplay online retailers saw sales growth three times that of their multichannel rivals with a 12.4% increase compared to 4.3% for the multichannel players.

And sales through smartphones continued to progress with a stunning increase of 50.8% year on year in October. The overall rise in m-commerce was 15.2% and highlighted a divide in growth between that rapid smartphones acceleration and tablets, which declined 8.6%.

Though still behind the five-year average of +10%, October’s results were better than the numbers for the rest of 2019, even though it was also the lowest growth for online sales in October ever.

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