Last month I wrote about some good economic news for eCommerce companies, noting that "the online retail sky" wasn’t falling just yet, despite the steady stream of negative information about sales in just about every sector for the last 7-8 months. That report specifically pulled out a few sectors that did well, while others still struggled. Since then, I've been on the search for more good economic news in the retail sector, and last week Forrester Research and Shop.org published their combined survey measuring online retail sales in the US.Retail sales are reportedly up – way up – in the first quarter of 2009 (subscription required). Retail is generally divided up into 3 subcategories, Consumer Brand Manufacturers, Multi-Channel Retailers (online/bricks-and-mortar hybrids), and Web-Only. Comparing Q1 of 2009 to Q1 of 2008, sales were up 71%, 68%, and 39% respectively.
This is significant for two reasons. First, and most obvious, sales figures for something actually increased. Second, they increased a lot. It’s particularly interesting that multi-channels retailers saw such a leap, further underscoring the need for marketing investment in technologies that link the off-line and online channels together to create one, holistic view of the consumer. Here’s an interesting article on how to unify those data points, and what’s possible once you do. It also creates incentive to find ways to bring the convenience and wealth of information found online into the bricks-and-mortar store experience.
A deeper dive into these numbers yields yet another interesting nugget. It’s not just that increases in sales were reported, but 44% of respondents to the survey – across any of the 3 retail subcategories – saw increases of over 10%. That’s more than a blip on the radar. That’s evidence of increasingly improving consumer confidence, showing that consumers are still willing to spend for the right product at the right price.
I think it’s appropriate to start Monday off with some good news, staving off any lingering cases of the Mondays. If the trend continues later in the year, each quarter-by-quarter comparison of retail sales should improve thanks in no small part to improvement consumer’s confidence.
