IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index: Online mobile sales falter as summer comes to a close

M-retail (smartphones and tablets) growth hit an all-time low of just +10% YoY. While smartphone growth still came in at +26.7%, it was the lowest growth since September 2014, and a significant drop on last August’s +53.6%. Multichannel m-retail growth only just stayed above water with +1% YoY growth, while online-only m-retail growth was up 15% YoY.

Garden finally slowed down after enjoying blockbuster growth from this year’s heatwave, coming in at just +2.8% YoY growth, down -43% against July. This sits in stark contrast to the previous 3-month average of +37.5% YoY. Beauty, conversely, had a strong month coming in at +25.3% YoY. Lastly, clothing had a mixed month, coming in at just +5.4 YoY. Curiously, Menswear experienced +18.6% growth versus just +3% for women.

Bhavesh Unadkat, principal consultant in retail customer engagement, Capgemini: “We were expecting a much bigger downturn in August than we got given the effect of the hot summer and events boosting sales in the previous months. The index was down on last month by less than 2%, the lowest decline compared to last four years, and therefore one of best performance we’ve had coming out of July.

“The August performance was largely driven by an uplift in the final week during the August bank holiday weekend; where we started to see a change in the weather, potentially driving autumn-wear and new season growth.  Basket values in clothing however, were 11% lower than last year, which could be a result of heavier promotional activity as retailers continue to claim share-of-wallet

“Categories such as Beers, Wines and Spirits and Electricals had a poorer month, demonstrating underlying revenue is coming more from core and necessity products as a trend rather than luxurious items.”

Andy Mulcahy, strategy and insight director, IMRG: “The main driver of growth in our index over the past few years has been smartphone devices; throughout 2016 sales growth through these devices was typically in the 75-100% range, then in 2017 it gradually slowed down to be in the 40-60% range, then as we’ve entered 2018 it has continued to decline. This is expected, as very high growth cannot usually be sustained for long periods, but in August three points of note happened. The first was that smartphone sales growth was at its lowest rate since September 2014; August 2018 was also the first time it has fallen below the 30% mark since then. The second was that, looking at mobile devices overall (smartphone and tablets combined), growth was at its lowest ever rate since we started tracking it in 2012. And finally, the weak performance seems to be attributed to the multichannel retailers, who recorded overall mobile device growth of just 1%, while for the online-only retailers it was up 15%.”

-ENDS-

About the ‘IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index’

The IMRG Capgemini Index, which was started in April 2000, tracks ‘online sales’, which we define as ‘transactions completed fully, including payment, via interactive channels’ from any location, including in-store.

About IMRG

For over 20 years, IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) has been the voice of e-retail in the UK. We are a membership community comprising businesses of all sizes – multichannel and pureplay, SME and multinational, and solution providers to industry. We support our members through a range of activities – including market tracking and insight, benchmarking and best practice sharing. Our indexes provide in-depth intelligence on online sales, mobile sales, delivery trends and over 40 additional KPIs. Our goal is to ensure our members have the information and resources they need to succeed in rapidly-evolving markets – both domestically and internationally. www.imrg.org

About Capgemini

A global leader in consulting, technology services and digital transformation, Capgemini is at the forefront of innovation to address the entire breadth of clients’ opportunities in the evolving world of cloud, digital and platforms. Building on its strong 50-year heritage and deep industry-specific expertise, Capgemini enables organizations to realize their business ambitions through an array of services from strategy to operations. Capgemini is driven by the conviction that the business value of technology comes from and through people. It is a multicultural company of 200,000 team members in over 40 countries. The Group reported 2017 global revenues of EUR 12.8 billion.

Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini