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We are analysing ongoing movements in e-commerce traffic and e-commerce revenue during the COVID-19 crisis.
The first 4 weeks of our report fell in February and were before the COVID-19 crisis took hold, these weeks form our “base” period. Our dataset contained over €9 million online revenue in the Retail and Travel sectors combined in February. This represents approximately 4% of the Irish e-commerce market pre-COVID.
In this month’s report we are going to update you with monthly figures, from the base month of February through to August.
Online retail revenues in August were up 76% on pre-COVID levels. This was an increase on July’s up 74% figure.
Midway through the month Ireland tightened its COVID restrictions. This led to an 11 point increase in online retail sales in week 3 of August.
The increase in online sales seen in August looks set to continue. The tightened restrictions will last at least into mid September, then we enter the Black Friday & Christmas quarter where retailers are contending with heightened consumer demand combined with reduced in store capacity to sell. Throw into the mix the possibility of a winter wave of COVID and further restrictions, and making sales online could be make or break for many Irish retailers.
The Irish Government has just launched a 2nd Phase of the COVID-19 Online Retail Scheme. It covers up to 90% of the costs of e-commerce projects. Wolfgang Digital had a 100% success rate with applications in the previous round. Check out your eligibility and apply via Wolfgang here.
Travel online revenue figures declined in August to 17% of pre-COVID levels. Within this figure there are very different stories for urban and country travel businesses.
Next month we’ll be doing a deep dive into Q3 for the Irish online economy, comparing the Irish experience with that of the UK and offering advice on how to maximise the online opportunity in what looks set to be a record breaking Christmas Quarter.
About the data.
The dataset is dynamic, after we publish figures, Google Analytics may continue to attribute revenue to previous weeks. In addition we might add and we might lose participants over time. This may lead to slight variances in the figures as time passes.
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