Online sales show no signs of improvement as decline deepens

Ecommerce retail revenue fell 4.1% year on year in February, and the decline between January and February was 7.8%, according to the IMRG online retail index.

Online sales fell 29.4% between December and January, which the IMRG says was sharper than usual.

The online clothing category saw a dip of 8.7% in February compared with the same period last year. The highest-performing category was gardening, with year-on-year growth of 38.7%.

Valentine’s Day marketing meant there was a 21.9% week-on-week online revenue spike for gifts and a 23.1% rise for fragrance in the week commencing February 5.

Last month also recorded the first week-on-week total market revenue growth of 2023 at 1.4% in the week starting February 19.

In February the IMRG’s index added the online retail category sports & outdoors and home improvement, a subcategory of home & garden.

Sports & outdoors saw 6.3% growth, up from -25.7% in January, while home improvement experienced 2.4% growth, down from 19.6% in January.

IMRG strategy and insight director Andy Mulcahy said: “Following the pandemic boom in online sales growth, volumes have fallen away for a period of almost two years now. At some point in 2023, even though growth was not possible in February against the biggest decline ever from February 2022, we still think growth will return even if it is very modest.

“The basket value shot up last year, and conversion collapsed accordingly, but those rates seem to have stabilised now so it’s just a question of when the apparently temporary pandemic volume has fallen away sufficiently to enable retailers to really take stock of how to build up again.”