Friday, January 19, 2007

Christmas figures reveal importance of ecommerce

The figures are mostly in and it is clear that the rise of ecommerce in December 2006 was even greater than most commentators expected.

The John Lewis Partnership saw online sales rise by a staggering 88.5%, which compares very favourably with the national retail growth by value of 4.7%. Average ecommerce growth figures for December 2006 vs December 2005 seem to vary between 50% and 30%, but both are pretty impressive numbers.

More significant is the fact that almost all of the retailers in trouble - Woolworths being a good example - don't have a working internet strategy.

Despite the relatively small proportion of total sales that ecommerce represents, it is clear that all retailers need to have an integrated multi-channel approach if they wish to succeed.

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