More than 90 per cent of retail sales growth is online

Regular readers of this blog, know that I'm a keen reader of the ONS monthly retail sales figures (pdf) – well someone has to do it. I've been sitting there with the champagne on ice, ready to celebrate the day when internet sales exceeded 10% of UK retail sales. When at last we could talk about one pound in ten being an internet pound. For the card schemes – Visa and MasterCard – this day came and went a long time ago, they're both over 20% of their volume online (if you think about it, the absence of competition from cash does really give them a bit of a boost). But for regular ecommerce it's been a real slog.

We last flirted with the number way back in November 2010 and since then have bragged about reaching 1 in 9 transactions,, then it stalled and was restated now eventually we seem nearly to be there. The figure for June, just published by the ONS is 9.9%.

What's more extraordinary is an analysis of the year on year growth figures– In June 2010, the ONS estimate of ecommerce was £376.3m, in June 2011, a year later it had leapt by a massive 49% to £560.5m. In the same period , all retail has grown from £5,500m to £5,700m, an increase of £200m.

In other words more than 90% of the increase of retail over the last year £184.2m out of £200m...

No wonder there are so many boarded up shops on the High Street.