Watch industry under-performs wider UK market for ecommerce growth

The average online basket value for the first half of 2018 reached its highest number since records began Overall, online retail has enjoyed a 16.8% year-on-year growth during the first half of 2018, defying extreme weather events like the Beast of the East and various heatwaves to record strong sales results every month so far, according to the Capgemini IMRG eRetail Sales Index Despite the UK being hit by freak cold weather moving into Spring, online retail grew by 153% year-on-year between January and March, with the reduced high street footfall driving shoppers to home spending.

As the weather picked up and the UK experienced some unseasonably hot weather in April, online retail sales still went from strength-to-strength, with a 18.2% growth between April and June The watch industry has under-performed in comparison, with growth evaporating in the first six months of 2018, according to GfK Despite the impressive growth of online retail, conversion rates for online retailers actually decreased overall every month other than May.

This could be accredited to the continued trend of online shopping via smartphone devices, which are accounting for a larger share of total online sales but feature lower conversion rates "Andy Mulcahy, strategy and insight director at IMRG, shares:"The performance for online sales in the first half of the year has been a lot stronger than anticipated "This could mean that we see a pinch on shopper spend as we move through Q3 - though the weather in July has been incredibly hot - which may lead to an imbalance in online retail growth between the first and second halves of the year". Source