The shops shutting up good for
The British high street is turning into a ghost town as it struggles to compete with the online shopping boom
NEARLY 18p in every pound was spent online in 2018 a record high.
Those are the findings of new Office for National Statistics analysis which looked at the death of the high street shop, compared with a continued boom in online shopping. The data reveals that money spent online has more than trebled from a monthly average of 4.9% in 2018 to 17.9% in 2018.
That is the highest proportion ever spent online. The latest monthly figures (for October 2019) show this has climbed even higher to 19.2%.
The rise of online shopping is perhaps unsurprising given that 87% of people aged 16 and over in Great Britain say they used the internet every day.
That marks the highest proportion since records began in 2008, when the rate stood at 49%.
At the same time, 82% of internet users say they have shopped online in the past 12 months - again, a record high when Clothes or sports goods compared with 2008. Perhaps unsurprisingly, clothes or sports goods were the most popular items bought online in the past year, with six in every 10 adults saying they’d done so.
That was followed by 49% of adults who’s bought households goods online over the past year, too. As well as books, electronic equipment and online food shops, 16% of adults also said they’d bought medicine online in the past year.
ONS analysis found, however, that nearly 39p in every £1 is still spent within the food sector.
Approximately £9.1 billion was spent online in 2018, compared with £15.4 billion in store The rise in online shopping could spell bad news for high street shops. Earlier this year, PwC commissioned research by the Local Data Company which studied the top 500 British high streets.
The research showed a net decline of 1,234 stores in the first half of the year the highest number since analysis began in 2010. Separate football analysis reveals that the number of people visiting bricks-and-mortar stores has fallen 10% over the past seven years. Those who didn’t shop online, however, were asked why not.
More than eight in 10 (83%) of those who don’t buy goods or services over the internet said they preferred to shop in person, had a loyalty to shops and did so out of force of habit. Interestingly, though, 43% of people said cited payment security or privacy concerns as the reason they don’t shop online.