March marked online retail’s 22nd consecutive month of negative YoY growth, at -2.2% (excluding November 2022, which was flat), according to the IMRG Online Retail Index.
This figure is relative to March 2022 which saw a -26% decline (which was large owing to pandemic comparisons).
However, according to IMRG, there was also a +9.4% MoM growth in March from February, with Mother’s Day likely a large contributor.
Andy Mulcahy, strategy and insight director, IMRG, says: “The performance online was complicated this month, with the early weeks doing well as Mother's Day moved forward, followed by the steepest decline of the year so far (-13.6% YoY) for those after.
"It will continue to be skewed moving into April, as Easter moved forward a week this year and we saw a WoW increase of +15% for the home & garden category for the last week of March, whereas there was a decline of -6.2% for the same week in 2022. How that balances out will determine whether April brings any signs of renewal online after a very long period of negative growth.”
