Online sales plummet in November

Online retail sales recorded their lowest ever growth in the month of November – falling by 19.8% Year-on-Year (YoY), according to the latest IMRG Capgemini Online Retail Index.
While this does compare to a strong November 2020 (36.2%), the Month-on-Month (MoM) figures were equally negative – showing a rise of only 40.4% versus the 50% that would typically be expected for the October to November timeframe.

Capgemini said that there is evidence that consumers are both “buying less often and spending less when they do”, with the conversion rate down by -20% YoY to 3.3% and average basket value (ABV) falling to £123 (versus its 2021 peak of £149).

With high street sales up, Capgemini added that it is “unsurprising that of the retailer types, multichannel brands suffered the most” – with their sales plummeting by -23.4% compared to only -13.4% for online only retailers.

Meanwhile, every category bar clothing saw double-digit negative growth – with gifts in particular down a huge -46.4%. In a month where previously Black Friday spend would be focused on electricals, that category recorded the second lowest result at -29.2%.

Lucy Gibbs, managing consultant, retail lead for analytics and AI, Capgemini, said: “The drop in online sales this year is not unexpected however the Month-on-Month figures suggest that spending overall has been even more subdued. Multichannel retailers were hit the hardest, down -23.4%, but online only retailers also suffered, down -13.4% due to the drop in overall traffic online.

“While a return to in-person shopping has taken a large share of the spend, other factors such as supplier shortages and delivery disruption have also caused retailers to spread and dilute some of the offers, which could be behind the decrease in conversion by 20% across November.”

Andy Mulcahy, strategy and insight director, IMRG, added: “In retail we are often prone to focusing on the negatives, but there is no escaping that November’s performance was very poor. The most concerning thing is that traffic was the problem, shoppers were just not visiting retailers’ sites in their usual volumes.

“To an extent, that could be explained by people taking to big high street locations again, but the next few weeks will be very interesting in that respect. There does seem to be an attitude of ‘getting it in before we get locked down’ at the moment, but from next week people will not want to go anywhere to avoid having to isolate over Christmas. We will, from a retail perspective, be in a lockdown in all but name which will really skew trading figures.”