More doom & gloom?

Here in the UK, we're hearing daily news reports of a forthcoming recession. For the second year running the summer was a wet wash-out and even winning lots of medals at the Olympics in China didn't raise spirits back home for long. So, what's in store for online?

Well, suprisingly its not all bad news, as UK ecommerce is still bucking the downward trend.

According to eMarketer's latest report 'UK B2C E-Commerce:Continued Growth in Tricky Times' 2008 will see an increase of over 28% on 2007 for online sales.





This figure, including online ticketing and digital downloads, is an amazing feat considering the decline in fortunes of High Street stores right now, for example:

• Woolworths £20m loss this year, potentially seeing the beginning of the end for this 99 year old
• Next's Spring/Summer sale volume being 20% down on 2007
• John Lewis, Argos & Homebase are all feeling the pinch

And what's more, predictions are that eCommerce will continue to have significant growth, with the same eMarketer report stating:

online sales will hit £94.2 billion ($169.6 billion) by 2012, although the
annual growth rate will drop below 10%

One thing's for sure... this isn't the online marketplace's recession right now!