Christmas spending up 4% but high street slumps

Year-on-year consumer spending was up 4% over the Christmas period but there was a huge divide between online retailers and high street stores, according to new research.

The latest monthly spending data analysis by Barclaycard found that growth in this period (22 November to 26 December) was driven entirely by online shopping, which saw the strongest year-on-year increase since April 2012, jumping 17.9%.

Meanwhile, the high street suffered from tough trading conditions with in-store spending recording only a slight 0.2% increase.

The strong performance saw online sales account for a quarter (24.6%) of total spend, which is second only to January 2015 when it accounted for 25.4%.

December’s online spend growth followed the biggest ever Black Friday, which rocketed 15.1% compared with the same day last year, while the average transaction value of online purchases rose 6.6%.

However this came to the detriment of the high street, which saw a 6.7% decrease in spending and a drop of 7.8% in average transaction value. As a consequence, overall spend on Black Friday was down 1% compared with 2014.

Chris Wood, COO at , said: “In many ways, this Christmas brought to the fore all the shopping trends of 2015. The large spikes in spending, centred around sales days like Black Friday, emphasise consumers’ increasing search for value as they hold back their spending until the best deals emerge.

“Likewise, whilst online shopping has grown in popularity throughout the year, the strength of consumer preference for digital over the high street was seen in full effect over the Christmas period.”