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Is ecommerce the way out of recession?
April 1st, 2009
In the UK, we are digital addicts.
Whilst we have ony 20% of the US’s population – our ecommerce market is 60% of the size of theirs. It’s the largest online market in Europe. 70% of Brits are now online – a very high percentage internationally – and online sales account for 17p in every Pound spent in the UK.
‘Ecommerce is the Noah’s Ark of retail in the recession. People naturally turn online when they want value, and those etailers that provide it will secure a place on the Ark to better times. Those that don’t will not be able to get on’, commented Jamie Muray, founder and CEO of Glassesdirect.com.
This wave of success is being driven by some smart individuals, mainly London based, and often women (able to excel outside of corporate stereotypes) who are focussing almost exclusively on innovation and creativity. From these, significant profits are now being made, and there is little or no discussion about recession. In fact the attitude amongst these entrepreneurs is to find new market opportunties in the chaos.
Take for example moo.com, which at first glance would look like a small London based printing business. They have skillfully expoited the web to sell abroad to increase profits and economies of scale. They now export to over 30 markets globally and the website is translated into 6 languages.
Or what would be seen as a traditional online ‘off-licence’, Laithwaites.co.uk is now shipping wine across the globe and is doing strong business in viticultural markets such as France, Australia, the US and Germany.
Peter Fitzgerald, from Google UK recently commented ‘Ecommerce will not be the only road out of recession for the UK but it will be one of the main ones’
Napoleon said we were a nation of shop-keepers. Well now we are now fast becoming a nation of e-tailers.