

Sainsbury’s enjoyed a fruitful Christmas period, too, recently announcing that grocery sales grew 7.4% during Q3 2020, with online groceries up 128%. Tesco announced a record-breaking Christmas, adding £1bn worth of online grocery sales in the 19 week-period. Overall supermarket sales also increased, which is perhaps due to consumers shopping less frequently and in bigger quantities, as well as stockpiling for Christmas and in preparation for potentially empty shelves. Grocery saw the biggest surge, with an extra 5.7 million UK households shopping for their Christmas groceries online in 2020 compared to 2019. Most of 2020’s retail growth was driven by reactive multichannel retailers, who were able to meet the shift in demand to online channels. On the other hand, the eventual easing of restrictions could result in spend on retail increasing, as well as sectors that previously struggled (such as travel or experience-focused retail) bouncing back.Ĭhristmas lockdown drives demand for grocery retailers Economic uncertainty could see consumers stem the ‘treat yourself’ mentality that we saw during 2020 lockdowns. However, it is difficult to confidently predict what’s to come – particularly as we do not know how long disruption from the pandemic will last. that ecommerce will continue to boom in 2021. With the UK in lockdown until mid-February at the very earliest, it is easy to assume that the pattern will continue, i.e. This is in contrast to overall retail sales, which fell by 0.13%, marking the lowest annual growth figure for 25 years. Overall, new data from IMRG states that online sales grew by 36% in 2020, which is the highest growth seen in 13 years. November and December saw an online sales growth of 39% and 37% respectively.

The final quarter of 2020 drove significant ecommerce sales, spurred on by events including Black Friday, Christmas, as well as UK lockdowns. Fast Track Ecommerce and Online Merchandising trainingĮcommerce sales increase, but overall retail fallsĮcommerce sales remained solid throughout the entirety of 2020, as consumers continued to shop online (even when restrictions in the UK eased over the summer months).Ratings and Reviews Best Practice Guide.For more on retail explore our retail hub page, or the following ecommerce resources:
