Online spend hits £11bn in December as sales soar 18%

IMRG Capgemini’s e-Retail Sales Index showed that £11bn was spent online in December.

IMRG, the trade body for ecommerce retailers, predicts that online sales will rise 17% in 2014 when £107bn will be spent online.

This would be an acceleration on 2013’s growth when ecommerce sales rose 16%, which exceeded IMRG and Capgemini’s forecast of 12%. Ecommerce now accounts for 21% of total retail sales.

Last year’s growth was driven by m-retail with sales via mobiles surging 138%. In December, 27% of all online sales came from a mobile device, equating to £3bn, twice as much as last year.

Capgemini head of retail and technology Chris Webster said: “For the first time in three years, we have seen the year-on-year rate of growth of e-retail accelerate from 14% in 2012 to 16% in 2013. 

“This performance has been fuelled by a variety of factors, not least the huge leaps in mobile technology, which has given a whole new section of society access to the internet and enabled the more tech savvy amongst us to shop while on the move. Combined with greater choice of delivery and collection options, as well as improved retail trading, the e-retail sector has all the ingredients for ongoing success.”

John Lewis online director Mark Lewis said: “Our customers continue to evolve how they shop, and are increasingly blending stores, online and mobile devices. With strong results from our shops as well, December 2013 was a truly omni-channel Christmas.”

Lewis said that the department store, which achieved 22.6% online growth in the five weeks to the end of December, received more than half its online traffic from mobile during Christmas and had a 61.8% rise in click-and-collect orders.

Click-and-collect now accounts for 25% of multichannel retailers’ sales, according to IMRG and Capgemini.