Online UK Uniform and T-Shirt Shopping Grows

Tuesday 02nd of December 2008 04:27:56 PM

The popularity of online shopping continues to grow in all countries. People are shopping for all different kinds of goods and services too, but clothing remains one of the highest sales categories. The economic woes are impacting results though, because the first shopping day in December is usually one of the biggest.

As the CEO of IMRG was quoted as saying, “Monday is almost always the biggest shopping day of the week, and Monday’s in December are usually huge. It was widely assumed that yesterday’s fall in at, from 17.5% to 15%, would create a considerable shopping surge, due to pent up demand caused by shoppers waiting for the lower rate. But it just didn’t happen. Many of the smart e-retailers had already passed on the lower rate as soon as it was announced.”

The UK government had lowered the VAT in an effort to spur much needed consumer spending on everything from durable goods to uniforms. IMRG stands for the Interactive Media in Retail Group. Online retailers implemented price reductions before the lowered VAT rate was available to consumers. This is a sign of the changing patterns of retailing as the internet makes it possible to react swiftly to competitor and government cost and pricing changes. For example, many retailers took part in a 20%-Off-Day promotional campaign last Thursday or 3 days before the lowered VAT was implemented.

As for the December 1, 2008 shopping day, Jon Prideaux of SecureTrading said this, “Yesterday (12/1/08) was the largest day for UK e-commerce ever in terms of transactions, but value was flat. Transaction volumes were 3% higher than the 2007 record but value is almost exactly the same as last year. The size of the general Christmas peak is smaller; normally it’s 85% above an average day, this year it’s only 68%.”

(c)Image by Ruth Harris, www.sxc.hu/