Courier drivers will be interested to read that, according to figures produced recently by the Office For National Statistics (ONS), the value of total online retail sales rose by 46.1% in 2020 in comparison to the previous year in Great Britain. The biggest increase was seen in “food stores” with total online sales increasing by 79.3%.

The proportion of retail online sales accounted for 29.6% of all retail sales in 2020 with year on year growth going up by 61.4%. Looking at this data in a little more detail shows that “all food” online retail sales made up 11% of all these sales with year on year growth of 126.4% – a huge increase. “All non food” online retail sales made up 27% of all these sales with year on year growth of 70.1%. “Department stores” online retail sales made up 35.4% of all these sales with year on year growth of 105.9% – a big rise. “Textile, footwear and clothing” online retail sales accounted for 31.9% of all these sales with year on year growth up by 49.1%. “Household goods stores” online retail sales made up for 20.9% of all these sales with year on year growth of 52%. “Other stores” online retail sales made up for 22.2% of all these sales with year on year growth of 82.2%. “Non-store retailing” online retail sales made up for 80.3% of all these sales with year on year growth of 42.2%.

It is interesting that, with the exception of “all food” online sales, the month of December 2020 witnessed online retail sales fall when compared with November 2020 – a drop of 6.2%. The biggest drop was in “household goods stores” with a fall of 27.9%. This was possibly due to many high street stores opening in December 2020 having been closed in November 2020 due to the pandemic.

It would be interesting to find out if this resulted in a significant increase in workload and, in turn, income for courier drivers. We will continue to keep you updated with any other interesting statistics relating to the courier sector.