// UK online retail sales slipped by 10.5% year-on-year in 2022, a record low for growth
// Growth was flat in Black Friday week, and the following week sales fell by 7.3% year-on-year
UK online retail sales fell by a record 10.5% in 2022, as December online sales also slipped by 12%.
It is the first year of full-year decline recorded by the IMRG Online Retail Index, which tracks the online sales of 200 retailers, following a previous low of 2.7% growth in 2021, compared to 2020.
The only categories that saw growth in December were lingerie, which rose 0.9% year-on-year, haircare, up 9.1%, and makeup, which increased by 8.3%.
Although the growth was not enough to push growth for their parent categories, as clothing was down 6.1% year-on-year in December, while health and beauty dipped 11.8%.
Clothing was the single main category to achieve positive growth for 2022 as a whole, at 2.5% year-on-year, with electricals down 18.1% and home and garden falling 17.6%.
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Growth online for the Black Friday week turned out to be flat, but it was better than expected and out of sync with the low demand of the previous 10 months.
Business was also slow in the week of December 18 with sales down 4.7% following delivery disruptions that led retailers to bring forward their final Christmas order dates.
That week’s decline came one year on from a 22.4% decline for the same period last year.
IMRG strategy and insight director Andy Mulcahy said: “Retail is a confidence game; if people feel they are comfortable with their financial and have some disposable income to play with every month, then retailers tend to see that reflected in general patterns of demand.
“It really has been a poor year. The bright spot, however, is that traffic to retail sites has continued to grow even after the huge surges from the pandemic, so once the general economic malaise eases, retailers should be in a good place to benefit from the fact that people still like browsing and shopping for products.
“The issue is that many are expecting another tough year in 2023, with the first half, in particular, unlikely to provide much respite.”
Rising inflation meant that the average basket value increased from £121 in 2021 to £134 in 2022, making products more expensive for people to buy.
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