Online Retail Sales Continue to Thrive Throughout January

• January’s online retail orders were up 15% year-on-year. 
• eCommerce revenue was up by 6% throughout January, compared to the same period of last year.
• Boxing Day sales continued to encourage online shopping into the New year.
• Fashion proved to be the best-performing sector, with some categories within the sector seeing online orders increasing by five times their level in January 2020.

The latest online retail data from Salesfire show that shoppers continued to have an appetite for January bargains with non-essential stores closed to the public.

Monthly data, gathered from Salesfire’s eCommerce analytics platform, TrendDesk, showed that orders with UK online retailers were 15% higher in January 2021 compared to the same period last year.

This follows a positive December, which saw online sales rocket, with stores remaining closed and online retail standing centre stage. Fashion retailers performed particularly well, with revenues 124% higher in January than the previous year.

Rich Himsworth, CEO at Salesfire, commented on the findings:

“It isn’t surprising to see increased online orders at the moment, but it is interesting to see just how many more people are satisfying their retail needs through a screen, rather than saving themselves for when stores reopen.

“As with all of us, shoppers aren’t able to pinpoint a date for when shops are going to reopen, so we expect the boom in online sales to continue for the foreseeable future.

“The men’s fashion industry has done particularly, closely followed by women’s fashion – we expect to see this trend continue throughout Q1 as spending habits settle to this extended lockdown.”

Salesfire collects data from 3,000 online retailers, across a range of sectors including health and beauty, fashion and electronics.

Rich continued:

“For 2021, I think we can expect to see online sales increase, with shoppers more inclined to make purchases from their homes, rather than venture out to stores.

“With big players in the industry, like Debenhams, moving to online only retail, I think that others will follow suit and change their tactics to satisfy shoppers’ needs, and providing the services and products to be delivered to doorsteps across the country.”

For more information about Salesfire, visit www.salesfire.co.uk.