Posted: 2012-03-19 13:54:57
Some welcome good recent news is that the UK is set to continue to capitalise on its lead in online retail.
Here in the UK it can sometimes feel as though we can never escape the gloom of a faltering economy and a commercial and industrial base that seems to be forever in decline.
It is therefore very refreshing to come across a study that sings our praises and even more so when that study is from a foreign source with nothing to gain.
The US based Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has recently published an excellent report that outlines the opportunities still to be claimed by a relentless development of internet use among the World's top 20 economies.
One of the key measures picked out was the Internet Economy as a percentage of GDP which shows the UK a clear leader in percentage terms.
In 2010 the internet economy, as they define it, represented 8.3% of the UK economy overall. On their projections this was set to grow to 12.4% by 2016.
In contrast South Korea, our nearest competitor in these terms, had an Internet economy representing 7.3% of GDP in 2010 that was only projected to grow to 8% by 2016.
The developed market average was only 4.3% in 2010; projected to be 5.5% by 2016. The UK comes out well ahead of even the United States with a figure of 4.7% for 2010 and projected to grow to just 5.4% by 2016.
In terms of online retail vs off-line retail the UK is projected to be conducting 23% of its sales online by 2016 with the nearest competitor of Germany doing just 11.7% and the US 7.1%.
On average, the developed economies in the G20 are projected to be conducting 8.5% of their retail online by 2016. Clearly this makes the UK an early adopter in many areas and certainly explains to some extent the sad state of the high street in so many of our towns and cities.
It is the speed of the change that is notable though. This is a true revolutionary trend. The world as we know it is literally being turned upside down in front of our eyes.
This is both an opportunity and a threat, of course. For those in the know and willing to dive in and make the most of it, things couldn't be better.
For those holding back expecting things to go back to 'normal', the future will not be good.
They are likely to go the way of so many businesses that have not sufficiently risen to the challenge in recent years.
The challenges will of course become steadily more challenging as time goes as by as we are almost certainly on the brink of a tipping point that will bring radical change in so many areas.
his BCG report is thought provoking and worth reading, so click here to take a look and when you are finished, get in touch to talk through what the implications are for your business and what should be your next steps toward successful online retail.