While Friday’s big economic-related news announcement was definitely a downer—unemployment nationwide has increased and now sits at an ugly 9.2 percent—web retailers are rejoicing thanks to more good news for them.
E-commerce sales in June increased 15.2 percent year-over-year according to the latest MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse report. For those of you keeping score at home, that now makes it eight consecutive months of double digit gains for the industry and June was the 23rd straight month of growth overall.
Are you beginning to wonder if this streak is ever going to end? So are we.
As was the case in May, when e-commerce sales were up nearly 16 percent year-over-year, outside factors seem to be dooming brick and mortar merchants as consumers opt to stay home to shop instead.
“…unfavorable weather and high gasoline prices appear to have helped e-commerce to its eighth consecutive month of double-digit growth,” said Michael McNamara, vice president, research and analysis, for MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse.
Not every product category in the e-commerce industry had a solid June. MasterCard reports that online jewelry sales dipped nearly 13 percent compared to the same month a year ago. Such a precipitous drop is fairly interesting considering that non-jewelry luxury sales elsewhere (i.e. premium restaurants, grocers, department stores and general apparel merchants) actually increased 8.2 percent in June.
Web sales in the ‘family clothing’ category also slipped, but only by 0.2 percent.
Outside of those few isolated areas though, June proved to be just the latest in a long string of robust months for online retailers. Women’s apparel was the biggest winner among e-commerce categories, jumping 12.2 percent year over year.
The SpendingPulse report is based on retail sales across all forms of payment, including all credit and debit cards, cash and check. MasterCard does not generally include spending in actual dollars as part of the report.
So, before you head home for the weekend, tell us what you think about this unprecedented, nearly two-year run of growth in e-commerce sales. Is it going to continue? If so, for how long? Leave us your thoughts and comments
below!
