Online sales rip High Street to shreds

The figures are gradually emerging for retail performance in Q4 2008 and high street sales figures are a bit of a mixed bag, some stores have generated increases (against the trend), some have suffered small losses but the overall trend of high street sales is down, down, deeper and down and so doom and gloom - gloom and doom is forecast for the economy.

However, this is a little like a soccer player taking their eye off the ball. Retails sales are now just one part of the equation - year on year online sales have shown massive growth IRO 30-50% year on year for the past 5 years and estimated to be 30% for Q4 2008. This has to be migration and cannibalisation from the high street. I know that I don't have any more money to spend, and neither do most of the people I know so (in the main) this is not new business. 

No matter who you believe (the British Retail Consortium state just 5% of retail spend is online whilst Interactive Media in Retail Group reckon that is's closer to 15%) there is a vast migration to the online shopping environment and if it is cannibalisation then someone has to get hurt - and it's the high street that suffers.

Or does it. A recent report from Nielsen Online (PDF summary here) shows that with the exception of Amazon (who top their table of the most popular UK online retailers in Q4 with 15.6m visitors +18% on 2007) and Play.com who come in at 4th place with a 35% increase in visitors to 5.7m all of the rest of the top 10 are established high street players - Argos (+32%), Tesco (+15%), M&S (+46%), Littlewoods (+66%), Currys (+35%), Asda (+53%), John Lewis (+31%) and Next (+38%).

This is simply further vindication of the move to an online environment.  Why would anyone torture themselves  by fighting the traffic, playing "hunt the parking space", digging out the change from your pocket to feed the parking machines (why can't towns be enlightened and provide the option of SMS payment or cash) and then braving the crowds in the high street to trudge from shop to shop comparing prices, checking availability and finally purchasing. Only to have to lug it all the way back to the car and then to start all over. 

WHY would anyone put themselves through this torture when you can do it from home (or the office), shopping when YOU want to, not when the stores feel like opening and as a nocturnal web dweller this is a REAL benefit.

You have access to ALL of the stores, not just those that have a presence in your nearest town, you can instantly compare prices and availability. Hunt for discounts and cashback deals, place your order and just sit back and wait for the delivery vans to start turning up.

So, the simple message is - if you can sell your products or services online then you HAVE to. If you fail to realise this, your customer base will be leached away by more enlightened businesses and I can't believe that I am still pushing this same message years after online trading became a viable option for ALL traders.