Online UK retail revenues have recovered from a tough period in recent months, although they’re still not growing at the buoyant levels we saw last decade and during the pandemic. But new figures show they’re building as we get closer to Christmas.

Data from AI-powered performance marketing and identity platform Wunderkind shows them rising 11.3% last week on the back of “improving consumer confidence, early Boxing Day discounting and looming delivery deadlines for Christmas orders”.

It also perhaps underlines how, for many consumers, festive season shopping is very much an online affair.

Original data from Wunderkind’s Marketing Pulse, which analysed over 34.2 million online shopping journeys, revealed the week-on-week rise that coincided with a slight-more-upbeat GfK consumer confidence report and a study claiming shoppers are planning to spend 10% more on Christmas gifting.

The data also showed that online conversions across the first two weeks of December were up 17.5% year on year, but this doesn’t seem to have dented interest in physical shopping. Wunderkind cited Sensormatic data showing healthy footfall rises recently.

As for the aforementioned impact of discounts of e-tail activity, it also said that after a busy Black Friday, e-commerce revenues continued to rise in early December, up 26.2% year on year in week 49 and 25.19% in week 50, “as some retailers started to bring forward Boxing Day discounting”. It mentioned Debenhams, Sweaty Betty and Liberty as being among those starting to offer the kind of markdowns usually reserved for traditional Boxing Day sales to drive pre-Christmas purchases.   

Wulfric Light-Wilkinson, GM, International of Wunderkind, said of all this: “Consumer confidence is gradually improving, but spending remains cautious. With intense online competition for wallet share, every conversion is hard-fought. As we approach the peak of Christmas trading, retailers face pressure to make every engagement count. Success will hinge on identifying and retargeting customers with timely, personalised product recommendations and promotions, delivered through the most effective channels.”