UK online fashion retail sales soar after Christmas.

The big story in retail this Christmas season may have been about the return of strong physical stores, but there was also a place for online. According to new data, e-commerce sales have become more important since mid-December and especially in the post-Christmas period.

Digital fashion sales rallied in late December, data-driven fit platform True Fit said, as “Boxing Day deals boosted price demand among shoppers looking for discounts on clothes and shoes.”

His Fashion Genome dataset showed a spike in traffic to online fashion sites on the web in mid-December, up 26 percent year over year. As traffic increased, so did demand for fitness guides, with True Fitness subscriptions up 30 percent in December.

Then UK online fashion orders jumped in the last week of December, up 53% week on week. In the week leading up to Christmas, shoppers were worried about placing orders and not getting their goods on time. But after Christmas Day, they embraced e-shopping again, hunting for bargains, hence the big change in the week.

The numbers support other earlier reports on retail trade in December with BDO defying forecasts of a fall overall for the month, and the wunderkind pointing to an online pick-up after Christmas.

Throughout the month, True Fit’s data shows that fashion orders from online multi-brand retailers significantly outpaced orders from direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands, with digital department stores taking 50% more orders than their DTC rivals during Christmas, the peak shopping period.

The company thinks this could also be linked to consumers trying to cut down on duty costs, choosing to place multiple orders through the same online retailer and pay just one delivery fee, rather than paying a separate fee for individual orders placed with multiples. Retailers, as well as increased credit ratings at multi-brand retailers compared to brands.

Sarah Curran, True Fit’s EMEA MD, said: “With retailers cautious in the run-up to peak trading amid cost-of-living concerns, many trading forecasts have been downgraded, with some retailers including Seasalt and Next posting better. Expected results.

But retailers aren’t looking at those results through rose-colored glasses — they know the economic headwinds will continue through 2023, prompting more consumer spending caution and extended feedback loops in the consumer shopping journey. And that means they have to fight harder — and smarter — to win every conversion and sale.