Online retail’s ho-ho-horrible month

THIS should sound alarm bells for online retailers. Despite the Christmas rush, online sales growth eased to its slowest pace on record in November.

Beautiful woman shopping online for Christmas.

ONLINE shopping took a hit in November, with sales growth easing to its slowest pace on record.

Sales contracted 0.2 per cent in November compared with October, and were just 3.9 per cent higher than a year ago, according to the National Australia Bank online retail sales index on Monday. It was the slowest monthly and annual growth rate in the history of the series, NAB economists said.

The figures show a reversal from October when online retail sales rose 11.9 per cent for the year, to a record $16 billion. NAB economists said Australians had now spent an estimated $16.3 billion online in the year to November.

That’s equivalent to 6.8 per cent of spending at traditional bricks and mortar stores (excluding food sales) in the year to October, they said.

“While October traditional retail was outpaced by growth in online sales for that month, a similar result cannot be assumed for November,” they said.

“We await the release of those data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics in January for comparison.”

HOW WE SHOP ONLINE

* Department and variety stores — 34 pct

* Homewares and appliances — 17 pct

* Groceries and liquor — 15 pct

* Media — 12 pct

* Fashion — 11 pct

* Personal and recreational goods — 5 pct

* Daily deals — 3 pct

* Electronic games and toys — 3 pct

Source: NAB