A new report by TAMI puts the UK as the 3rd largest eCommerce market accounting for 30% of all globally with retail sales. This is based on online sales recent data from the UK Office for National statistics. In 2021, there were 2.5M additional domains registered which is increase of 79,000 eCommerce websites vs 2020.
Some key stats:
There are now 580,000 eCommerce enabled websites in UK. The number of empty high street shops soared in 2021. Large chains were hit hard with high street leaders Debenhams, Victoria’s Secret & Arcadia Group going into administration in 2021. Is the future of retail the Internet?
From TAMI’s analysis, Royal Mail is the most popular shipping company used by eCommerce retailers in the United Kingdom. Trailing Royal Mail is UPS, DHL, Fedex and DPD…all non English owned parcel companies. Amazon was the largest private parcel courier in the UK last year as it capitalized on the dramatic increase in delivery volumes during lockdown. Amazon extensive logistics network across the UK enabled it to cash in on eCommerce growth, seeing its market share by volumes grow to 15 per cent, and up from nine to 11 per cent market share by revenue. The online retailer’s logistics arm also saw the highest market share growth by revenue of any courier between 2014 and 2020, shooting up 10 per cent. After Amazon ,Royal Mail had the highest parcel volume with 34 per cent market share. DPD saw its market share increase from eight to 10 per cent. The UK also generated the highest number of parcels per capita in Europe with the average person receiving 74 parcels each in 2020, up from 56 in 2019.
Roughly just 60% of eCommerce merchants in the UK offer free shipping to customers, and only 33% offer next day shipping. Amazon on the other hand offers free delivery on many products over £20, and next day shipping for Prime customers. 19% of eCommerce merchants shipping products use more than 1 carrier.
A number of underlying trends have been accelerated by COVID-19. In-store, there’s a continued surge of contactless acceptance driven by the UK limit increase to £45, passed to help combat COVID-19, and an acceleration of integrated payments which enable new functionality such as Click & Collect at restaurants. Retailers and hospitality merchants are adopting e-com solutions at a faster rate, with a focus on ease of integration and more flexible acceptance methods, such as POS financing.
72% of all UK eCommerce merchants declare who they use for payment processing on their website either via image, text or JavaScript. 88% of these merchants are using PayPal which is a massive share of the market. Apple jumped up to 2nd place with 60K eCommerce merchants now supporting Apple Pay as Mobile payments are increasing due to the pandemic. Stripe has moved to 3rd Place followed by WorldPay.
17M people in UK were registered to use mobile payments at the end of 2020 24.1% of UK population are estimated to use mobile proximity payments by 2025. There was 18% lower credit card usage during 2020 when compared to a year earlier. Nearly half of Generation Z use mobile payments. It is estimated that nearly a billion contactless transactions will take place every month in 2022 in UK. Mobile Payments are accelerating the decline of cash.