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By comparison, Walmart’s US same-store sales also grew, with strong sales in categories linked to the pandemic, such as TVs and connected home devices. Yet this in-store growth is only single digits, reflecting broader trends towards online rather than in-store shopping.<\/p>\n
![\"October](\"\/wpe-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/target.jpg\")
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Target’s Q2 earnings report<\/a> followed the same pattern with even more extreme figures. Its “store comparable” sales grew by a healthy 10.9%, while digital sales grew 195%. That contributed to the retail giant’s revenue mix going from 7.3% digital to 17.2% digital in just one year.<\/p>\n It’s an extraordinary time in ecommerce, with years of change happening in the space of a single quarter. Consumers are predictably spending more online in order to reduce their reliance on in-store visits. When they do visit stores, they’re buying more so that they have to visit less often and, when possible, they’re ordering online before picking up. Welcome to the relatively new world of in-store experience with online transaction\u2014and a textbook case of Enterprise-to-Local marketing<\/a>.<\/p>\n Broad trends tend to ring true. In the US, ecommerce penetration went from 17% to 22% during lockdown. In the UK, it has been an even more impressive leap from 20% to 30%. Notable but not surprising, right? In fact, there are a number of interesting discrepancies beneath the surface.<\/p>\n The pandemic has forced ecommerce to accelerate\u2014and consumers to experiment. Although one might assume that the easing of lockdown measures would see at least a partial return to the familiar old world of in-store shopping, the opposite appears to be happening. In the UK, overall ecommerce sales are surging even as lockdown is eased: ecommerce recently accounted for 60% of all non-grocery UK retail sales<\/a>. In the grocery sector itself, online grocery sales doubled (though they remain a tiny percentage of overall sales, suggesting serious scope for future growth).<\/p>\n But this prosperity isn’t universal. The industries and businesses most significantly impacted by COVID-19 have been simply unable to make a smooth transition online, including bars, restaurants, and travel providers. But you can also include clothing in that count: clothing store retail sales in the US plummeted from $16bn a month to less than $3bn a month during lockdown\u2014a downturn not nearly made up for by a corresponding rise in online sales.<\/p>\nMore ups than downs?<\/h2>\n
![\"UK](\"\/wpe-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/uk-retail.jpg\")
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