UK retail, Brexit and other ecommerce news

This data is regularly collected and reviewed by Lukasz Wrobel, an economist specialising in data science, financial markets and eCommerce. He is passionate about following and analysing the latest trends and numerical data.

Lukasz is currently focused on data mining projects and building predictive statistical models to help Webinterpret’s customers maximise their sales on foreign markets.

This week a few updates related to the economy in relation to eCommerce.

U.K. retail rises for 35th month in a row

In March, U.K. retail sales increased by 2.7% compared to March 2015 which was the 35th consecutive month of year-on-year growth. The main supporting factor for British consumers is the continuation of price decreases: on average they were 3% lower than the year before.

Retailers have cut prices for 21 consecutive months, which was most significant at petrol stations (-9% vs. March 2015). The only category of stores experiencing a strong drop in demand was “Textile, clothing and footwear stores” where sales decreased by more than 6 %.

The value of online sales increased by 8.9% in March 2016 compared to March 2015 and the amount spent online accounted for 13.2% of all retail spending, compared to 12.1% in March 2015.

The growth of the US eCommerce market

The US eCommerce market grew by 14.6% in 2015. Web sales totaled $ 341.7 billion for the year.

Online sales accounted for 7.3% of total retail sales. To compare, in 2014 it was 6.4%. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, this was the sixth year in a row with eCommerce growth of approximately 15%.

The UK and the Brexit

The euro fell in April against the British Pound for the first time since November 2015. After reaching the highest rate since late 2014, the value of the euro fell to 0,78 GBP.

Source: Finviz.com

The speculation about a possible Brexit raises questions about the mid-term perspectives of the UK economy as the EU membership referendum approaches.

For more information, check out the following articles:

Will the ‘Brexit’ Bruise UK E-Commerce?
Europe vital to UK’s e-commerce exports
Brexit would damage UK ecommerce sector

Stay tuned for our regular updates and follow policy changes that can affect your online business!