Some new figures from Hitwise show that the high-street retailers (HS) -- people who have physical stores as well as online stores -- are gaining market share over the "pure play" (PP) online-only retailers, at least in the UK. (This doesn't necessarily mean the online retailers are suffering a decline, just that they are not growing as fast as the total market.)
Hitwise says:
According to Hitwise's report, "Can Retailers Have a Happy Christmas During the Credit Crunch?" , between July 2007 and 2008, UK Internet traffic to the online properties of high street retailers increased by 18.7%, compared with a drop of 10.2% for online only retailers.
Against that, Experian has reported a "2.6% year-on-year decline in actual physical visits to retailers" for July, so it looks as though one factor is that some people who would have gone to a Tesco store, say, are now going to Tesco online instead.
For the record, "The top 5 online high street retailers in the UK during July 2008" in terms of their "share of UK Internet visit to Shopping And Classifieds websites" were:
1. Argos.co.uk 1.69% 2. Tesco.com 1.27% 3. Next.co.uk 0.90% 4. Marksandspencer.com 0.74% 5. Johnlewis.com 0.58% share)
How this will play out over the long term is, of course, another matter.....
