The Olympics encouraged shoppers in the U.K. to open their wallets and buy more online during the month of July.
That’s according to the Interactive Media in Retail Group. It finds that online sales in the U.K. grew by 17 percent, year over year, in July, reaching 6.5 billion pounds. That’s the biggest year-over-year growth of 2012. Compared to June, July sales grew 9 percent.
Clothing sales had a boost of 15 percent, year over year, and 18 percent compared to June. Officials attribute the increase to warmer weather and the debut of new fall fashions.
Mobile sales saw an increase of 313 percent, year over year, and travel an increase of 12 percent, year over year, IMRG reports. July was also good to online-only merchants. In fact, stores that only have an online presence saw an increase of 19.5 percent, year over year, while multichannel stores had a 15-percent increase.
Chris Webster, the head of retail consulting and technology at IMRG, says officials won’t know the exact impact the Olympics had on the retail sector until next month but adds that the “excitement and build up” to the games definitely helped July’s strong numbers.
“Retailers, both online and offline, were offered a unique opportunity to build an international base of customers, so it will be interesting to see whether the U.K. successfully capitalized on the millions of additional visitors to Britain,” he adds.
