Jewelry stores are seeing a decline in online sales, new research finds
New research shows that online retail sales have decreased in many online retail stores and physical stores in recent years.
Researchers from the National Retail Federation (NRF) said that online sales fell in the last quarter of 2018, the first year that sales declined for a quarter or more.NRF’s Chief Economist of Retail Finance Paul Gass said that there has been a “significant decline in overall retail online sales”.
“The most significant impact of the decline in the number of online retail customers is on the number and size of stores, which has been especially apparent in online retail,” Mr Gass told Business Insider.
“For example, as a share of overall retail sales, online retail now accounts for less than 0.5% of total retail sales.”
However, it has increased its share in overall online retail and in retail physical stores since 2017.
“Mr Gass also said that the number, size and growth of physical stores were declining.”
The growth in physical stores, however, has been more than offset by declines in online retailers, particularly in the retail physical segment,” he said.
The NRF said that, overall, online and physical retail sales decreased by $1.6 billion, $1 billion and $3 billion respectively in the quarter.”
Online retail sales in the fourth quarter declined by $2.5 billion, while physical sales fell by $3.2 billion,” the report said.”
Overall, online sales declined by more than $10 billion.
“It added that online retailers also saw a drop in sales through the holiday season, which resulted in a loss of $1bn.”
Retail physical sales declined the most in the third quarter due to a decline across all categories, as the holiday shopping season was the only period when online sales increased,” the NRF report said, adding that online and offline sales had “remained strong in the current quarter”.
The report also pointed to online retail’s growth as the reason why its share of total sales has fallen since 2016.”
In the past three years, online retailers have increased their share of retail sales from 3.4% to 9.9%,” the study said.
Topics:business-economics-and-finance,retail,consumer-protection,consumer,online-commerce,online,markets,industry,advertising,consumerism,internet-technology,onlinecommerce,united-statesFirst posted May 07, 2020 21:53:26Contact Sarah BowersMore stories from New South Wales