A survey conducted by web host
34SP.com has suggested that British online retailers are more optimistic about sales than high street retailers, particularly in relation to the coming 12 months.
The survey, which focused on British SMEs, revealed that of the 1,000 companies polled, in excess of three quarters (78%) of online retailers felt confident that sales will increase over the next year. This compares favorably against high street retailers, of whom only 27% believed this trend would impact their businesses.
Online retailers' optimism appears to cover the UK economy in general. When asked 40% of high street retailers felt the UK economy was ‘bad’ while only 32% of online retailers felt the same way. However, neither group showed strong views when asked if they felt the UK economy was 'good', with only 19% of high street retailers and 17% of online-only retailers expressing this opinion. Both groups suggested the UK economy will be healthier a year from now, with 41% of online retailers expressing this belief, and 36% of high street retailers having the same opinion.
“What is clear from these figures is that online retailers feel much better placed to take advantage of an improving economic climate," explained 34SP.com's Founder and Technical Director, Daniel Foster. “Although both e-commerce and high street businesses expect to see a significant improvement in the state of the UK economy over the next 12 months, online retailers feel more confident that this will feed through to stronger business performance. This will inevitably be due in part to the extra costs that bricks and mortar businesses have to meet, but also because of the noticeable shift in the numbers of people choosing to shop online rather than visit the UK high streets.”
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