Consumer spending online is continually growing. With online spending projected to increase this Christmas with more people looking to do some of their shopping online, and also high numbers of consumers projected to do their January sale shopping online the growth and power of ecommerce has never been as apparent as it is right now.
Well, according to Ebay things are going to continue to increase and in 2020 it is estimated that one in five pounds will be spent online. Compare this to the current one in 13 pounds and you can see the rate in which ecommerce is growing and is projected to grow.
The projections from Ebay - which was reported on Brand Republic - also states that in 10 years online will account for over half of new retail businesses. Also the annual online spend is predicted to grow by £46bn (223%) and offline spend to drop by £18bn or 7%.
What this highlights is the fact that businesses cannot ignore any longer the need to have an online presence. If these estimates are to hold true then the bricks and mortar stores that have adorned our high streets for years are looking likely to play second fiddle to online. The recent speculation surrounding Amazon (whether true or not) having ‘pick-up’ stores on the high streets highlights this further in that bricks and mortar stores are likely to act as a support for websites rather than the other way around.
So the next decade is looking very interesting for online retailing and by 2020 the look of the high street could end up looking like a very alien place to us…
January 4th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
It will be interesting to see what happens to the high street, i don’t think that it will die altogether, but i do think that eventually only shops that offer a superior shopping experience or services and items that the internet does not sell easily of well will survive. Time will tell i guess, maybe there will be a shopping renascence…