Online Shopping vs the High Street after lockdown numbers

The BDO High Street Sales Tracker outlines the weekly sales changes of more than 85 retailers with some 10,000 individual stores and reports shop sales are up over 10x compared to the same time last year. However at the same time Internet sales are up 49% so the Great British public haven’t deserted online shopping and it’s likely that is a change there’s here to stay.

Shop sales are still weak compared to two years ago before the pandemic hit and now shoppers have a choice of where and how to shop. Much of the high street is decimated with the loss of many anchor shops, although many Debenhams are currently open to clear remaining stock before finally closing forever.

The choice that shoppers now have mean that the free ride internet retailers have had over the past year is at an end. Shoppers can now choose between an instore buying experience and the convenience of online shopping and that convenience is where online merchants now need to excel in order to continue winning sales. That means that your delivery and returns processes have to be top notch. When the shops were closed, most consumers were just happy to be able to buy and receive anything no matter how shoddy the service but now their demands will once again rise and the gap between delivery and returns expectation and reality has to be closed.

To ensure that you give customers a seamless online shopping delivery and returns experience and, beat the competition when it comes to conversion rates at checkout, join our webinar with GFS at 11am on the 29th of April. The webinar will cover:

• The top 5 insights from the latest research on what consumers expect from delivery and returns
• What a ‘best-practice’ delivery & returns experience looks like
• Practical and affordable ways to solve the problem
• Seeing this in practice

Our guest speakers will be Bobbie Ttooulis, Group Marketing Director for GFS and, Phil Bradley-Smith, Technology Specialist for GFS. Register now to join us on the 29th.