So today is the day - have you got your mouse and your online credit card handy? Apparently every other Brit has.

James Roper - the big cheese over at IMRG - has been garnering masses of (print, broadcast and online) column inches about how, despite the downturn, online retail continues to grow at a pace that will leave other channels (i.e. bricks and mortar) green with envy.

Last week, Monday broke the record for online sales in the UK in a single day. But today will (we’re told) be even bigger.

It seems that online retail is expected to grow 20% this year, compared to 40% or so in previous years. Not bad given the flat to downright messy expectations in the High Street.

Happy shopping - I look forward to the figures!

Tags: e-commerce, ecommerce, imrg, James Roper, Mega Monday, onilne retail

Alistair Darling?

As 2007 drew to a close, the UK e-commerce community celebrated a 54% year-on-year growth for the all-important fourth quarter, capping another year’s heady growth.

My how the world has changed since then. Still in the grip of the credit-fuelled boom, we’d come to expect these kinds of figures.

So what now? A forecast from IMRG, which just hit my inbox, suggests that this year growth will slow to 15%. Hold on a second… double digit growth? In the midst of an economic crisis Captain Darling memorably described as “the worst they’ve been in 60 years“?

I’d call that not such a bad outcome.

I’ll be even more interested to watch what happens following the central bank’s decision to slash interest rates to 2/3rds of where they were last week.

What is clear though is that online continues to show growth - both in sales and in marketing expenditure - even during the most severe downtown the economy has demonstrated in my lifetime.

Tags: alistair darling, ecommerce, imrg, recession

yesterday's news? BE MORE DEMANDING!

So it turns out I was right.

Somewhere between 8 and 9pm, Ocado kindly delivered, without direct prior warning, a copy of that day’s Times.

Thanks.

There are at least two things wrong with this:

• What value do you put on the day’s morning paper at 8pm?
• What if I’d already bought it?

In the days of concern about the amount of printed paper we get through, I’d estimate the capacity for dissapointment from this marketing gesture is about 85%. Seriously Ocado, this is a great way to turn something that *should* be a positive into a reason for a customer to feel let down instead.

Tags: ecommerce, gift horse, internet shopping, Ocado, Times