Customers In Sussex Are High In Britain's "On Line Shopping" League Tables

Monday, 23 November 2020 18:31

By John Warburton @Warblefly

On-Line Shopping Surges In Crawley And Brighton (Photo: Center For Cities)

Two locations in Sussex have taken UK-wide third and fourth positions, in a table ranked by the proportion of shopping conducted online by people in large towns or cities.

According to the "Centre For Cities" campaign, Crawley has the third-largest share of shopping done via the Internet, at one quarter of all purchases.

And Brighton's figure is the same, 25%, though it's been placed fourth in the league table.

Both figures are not far above the average for the whole of the UK, where 24% of spending from large towns and cities takes place through a web browser or app.

The survey also found that people in cities and large towns in the North and Midlands continue to do more of their spending in bricks-and-mortar shops.

Burnley (19%), Bournemouth (20%), Blackpool (20%), Stoke (21%) and Warrington (21%) have the smallest shares of spending being done online.

In general, online spending has increased in every city and large town since February — on average it has increased by 4 percentage points.

The biggest increase has been in the share of online spending on essential goods (e.g. food) since February — 9 percentage points across all of the UK's large cities and towns.

But, with restrictions still in place, it is too soon to say if the shift towards more online spending may be permanent.

However, shares of online spending remained sustained throughout 2020 even while non-essential shops reopened over the summer.

The Centre for Cities sounds a note of hope for high streets in Sussex, though.

It says:

"We should not assume that more online spending will signal the 'death of the high street'.

"Many of the cities with high shares of online spending such as London, Cambridge and Brighton, have thriving city centre economies.

"Conversely, many of the places with the most in-store spending also have lots of vacant units.

"This suggests that, to limit the negative effects of the popularity of online retail, high streets should over time move away from retail and towards restaurants, cafes, bars and other leisure amenities."