Lots of very useful data coming out about the offline and online retail markets at the moment. In particular, InternetRetailing and some Hitwise seminars. So what’s the status in a nutshell?

• Sales on the high street have been declining and will continue to do so until 2014, by around -2.5% year on year
• Online eCommerce is still growing but has slowed down
• Monday 8th Dec has been the biggest day online so far this year but some pundits are predicting next monday to be even bigger as e-tailers are now offering later and later deliveries. Christmas day and boxing day will also be big days.
• Biggest growth areas online are low frequency items (which includes groceries and clothing)
• 0.5% of all e-commerce traffic is through voucher code sites!
• 2008 is showing a similar shopping trend to 2007 in terms of the biggest days online, although volumes are 10% higher.

What does all this mean? Basically we’re still shopping but we’re shopping slightly less than before and moving from the high street to online to look for products and deals. I wouldn’t want to be a high street retailer right now!