Online sales figures increasing

Good News! it looks like the the ecommerce sector has weathered the recent hard times and are looking at a period of growth.

In just three months from July to September 2009 online sales by UK businesses has increased by 0.9% compared to the previous quarter. The largest increase in the sector was in Household goods stores which increased sales by 3.3% - the highest quarterly growth for the last three years.

The majority of this growth occurred in July, which was expected when we consider the concerns over buyer caution, though hopefully the figures for the final quarter may show that this slow down was in preparation for a Christmas Rush that may continue the growth of the sector.

Interestingly non specialised stores actually showed a decrease of 0.3% which may be indicative of the internet shopper's preference to niche market online shops.

However the trend is accelerating. compared to September 2008 total sales increased by 2.4% with the non-store retailing and repair market increasing by an impressive 11.7%. This seems to show that more services and private sellers are using the internet as a route for customer payments.

Adjusted values do show that while volumised sales were up by 2.4% the actual value of the sales was only up by 1.8%. However we should not allow this to put a dampener on the good news. As sales volume increase is solidified and these new online customers become repeat buyers the need to discount prices and drive sales through promotions will decrease. When buyer confidence reaches a point that we can return to our traditional sale patterns then we truly will be out of the woods and on the road to economic security. Given these growth figures we can hope that the Ecommerce Market will be leading the way on that path.