As the amount of ecommerce fulfilment that we handle has been increasing virtually month by month we thought it was about time to put some effort into finding out more about the ecommerce market in the UK, by looking at the trends and numbers really as part of improving our understanding of this fast developing area.
The UK ecommerce spend for 2021 is forecast to be close to £143,000 million across all sectors and is expected to continue to grow to a figure of around £149,000 million by 2025. As of this year ecommerce is around 29% of all UK retail sales with delivery of ecommerce purchases being across all options including ecommerce fulfilment via postal services, parcel carrier, direct van delivery as well as collect from store.
The sectors that these businesses operate in, is varied across all the expected areas with very few surprises other than we are surprised by the closeness of some of the %. This is what we have found so far:
Which products did responders say they purchased on line
| Products | % |
|---|---|
| Clothes inclu15ding those in sports, shoes | 55 |
| Take away and delivered food | 32 |
| Books, magazines newspapers | 29 |
| Furniture, home items and gardening | 28 |
| Computers and mobiles | 24 |
| Childrens toys and child care items | 22 |
| Cosmetics, beauty and wellness | 22 |
| Cleaning and personal hygiene | 18 |
| Consumer electrical white and brown goods | 18 |
| Sports (excluding clothing) | 17 |
| Food and Beverage from stores | 13 |
| Medicine and dietary supplements | 13 |
| Physical copies of films and series | 13 |
| Physical copies of music | 12 |
| Cars, mopeds and other vehicles | 8 |
Where are UK ecommerce users from
| Regions | % |
|---|---|
| UK | 73 |
| EU | 16 |
| Outside EU | 11 |
How do they pay
| Payment Processors | % |
|---|---|
| Paypal | 49 |
| Credit/Debit card | 37 |
| Other | 14 |
Interesting numbers and a good starting point in getting a view of this whole area of e-commerce.