Online retailers far outstrip high street
March 27, 2009 by Admin · Leave a Comment
Online retailers remain confident that they will prosper during the recession, a new business survey by eBay indicates.
Almost two thirds of the 410 businesses polled from eBay’s top 2,000 sellers list said they were confident about the future and more than three quarters planned to expand their business this year.
Mark Lewis, eBay’s UK manager, said this confidence was based on their robust sales performance over the past year, with the average from his top 1,000 sellers hitting 29pc growth in the last quarter of 2008, up from 23pc in the same period of 2007.
Mr Lewis said these online trading businesses were still “bucking the trend” of stagnant retail sales on the high street. Some 54pc expected rising sales, while 30pc expected static sales this year.
These expectations were supported by the monthly IMRG Capgemini online retail sales index, published last week, which showed that year- on-year sales grew 13pc in February.
Mr Lewis said: “They are growing at a rate that is bucking the trend. Not only are they growing faster than retailers in general but they are accelerating.”
According to the survey, which covered businesses that trade online via eBay, other platforms like Amazon and their own websites, most online traders still focus on the UK market.
Almost 90pc of the sales by the top 1,000 sellers on eBay were conducted with UK customers. European customers represented 9.4pc of total sales, with other countries representing less than 1pc.
Mr Lewis said smaller traders still found it difficult to negotiate barriers to trade, like different consumer protection laws, operated by different countries, even across the EU.
UK economy slows sharper than expected
March 27, 2009 by Admin · Leave a Comment
GDP contracted by 1.6pc in the fourth quarter of 2008, revised down from a contraction of 1.5pc, the Office for National Statistics reported. The quarterly fall of 1.6pc was the sharpest decline since 1980.
Construction output tumbled 4.9pc over the quarter, revised down from a fall of 1.1pc. The ONS said this was due to survey data replacing a forecast.
The decline is the biggest quarterly fall in construction output since the fourth quarter on 1980.
Output of the production industries fell 4.5pc compared with a fall of 1.8pc in the previous quarter, driven by the marked decline in manufacturing output.
Separate figures showed Britain’s current account deficit narrowed to £7.641bn in the fourth quarter of 2008 from an upwardly revised deficit of £8.162bn in the third quarter.
Sterling fell against the euro on Friday as it continued to suffer the fallout from Thursday’s weak retail sales figures. High street sales plunged by 1.9pc during February, taking annual growth down to just 0.4 percent, its weakest since 1995
Following that theme, John Lewis – the department store group whose sales are often seen as a barometer of British retail spending – reported on Friday sales dropped by 12.6pc in the week to March 21.
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March 16, 2009 by Admin · Leave a Comment
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