Online retail revenue declined in June compared with last year, marking the 26th consecutive month where growth has remained flat or negative.
According to IMRG’s Online Retail Index, which tracks the online sales performance of 200 retailers in the UK, ecommerce retail sales saw a year-on-year decline of 1.2% in June.
However, the total online market revenue increased by 1.4% compared with the previous month, in line with the growth trend for this time of year.
June saw year-on-year growth of 1.9% and a month-on-month growth of 5.4% in the traffic metric after seven months of decline, attributed to communal celebrations such as Father’s Day and Pride.
The heatwave and warm weather in June contributed to an increase in demand in some categories including garden seeing a 10% year-on-year growth.
Clothing remained down at -2.3% year on year, however footwear saw positive growth of 0.7%.
Since March 2022, year-on-year revenue for small appliances grew to 47.1% despite seeing a decrease in traffic throughout 2023.
IMRG strategy and insight director Andy Mulcahy said: “Following the pandemic boom, when lockdowns drove huge surges in online purchases and it appeared possible that its penetration into retail overall had rocketed forward several years, the market has actually been in decline ever since.
“However, while negative growth has become normalised, the trend lines are heading back towards positive growth again, likely in time for the most important time of the year for retail – Black Friday and Christmas. Provided, of course, the looming mortgage crisis doesn’t blow everything off target again.”
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