Member Article

Small Business online sales increased positively over 2012

A positive trend of increased online shopping controlled the falling retail sales over the festive period. Compared to last year’s, the sale this Christmas rised by 1.5% and excluding new stores that have come up recently, they rose 0.3% in the compared categories of sales.

An interestin research from Online Marketing AG comes to show that just the 17.8% spike in online non-food sales helped, and it stopped the potential trend of falling sales. This is a change after 2011 when sales were looking stagnant and now the figures showed signs of improved sales for 2013 too.

The trend seems to have bolstered with retailers enabling their websites to be more user friendly while improving their confidence with online security. That, together with the demand for smartphones and tablets added the positive trend. Clearly these dynamics were in stark contrast to dull shop sales, even if individually online retail sales were only about 10% of shop sales.

Assorted Sales Trends Besides online retail sales, the only other positive spark was in department stores sales. For instance major department stores here recorded the highest sales over Christmas. It appears that they go with the advantage of being able to offer several products under one roof. However, even they have reported a strong surge in their own online sales. Observers point out that department stores may soon be outperforming even some large retailers.

Exits of a major player from the industry might have also improved the sales of competitors in the retail space. So some observers are quick to point that the improved sales need not indicate growth of the market as much as they may be indicating reallocation of customers from the exited players to the existing ones. While the trading figures for December are expected on 18 January, some point out that said the small gap between overall trading and like item trading indicates some new stores openings of 2012. Retailers are feeling the heat especially after flat sales discounted for inflation, meant rising costs and retailers aren’t able to make profits at this rate. The fact that inflation discounted figures showed that December sales were the worst since 2008 supports this sentiment.

It is possible therefore that more retailers may exit the retail space. The post-Christmas credit card bill payment cycle for the consumers might also restrain their enthusiasm for more purchases in the near future. It is said therefore that similar situations of toughness for the retailers is expected even during 2013. So some more retail players may exit during the year.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Anita I. .