Conquering the UK market: data, figures, facts and statistics

Published on: October 24, 2020 / Update from: October 26, 2020 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

Decision-making aids in data, figures, facts and statistics as PDF for free download, see below.

IMPORTANT: Not all existing documents are mentioned in this article. Maybe these will be handed out later, piece by piece.

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Online shoppers accounted for 50 percent of the total population of the European Union in 2018. In a European comparison, the share of online buyers is highest in the United Kingdom at 77 percent. The average spending per capita when shopping over the Internet is also highest in the United Kingdom. Per capita expenditure there in 2019 amounted to EUR 921. In second place come the Germans, who spend an average of EUR 784 per year on online purchases.

It is also interesting that many companies integrate an English version in addition to their own national language when setting up their e-commerce. Mostly because technology provides it and mostly not based on data and figures. Access to the UK and US markets is seen as a “positive” side effect. In most cases there is no strategic basis for this.

And if the UK or US market is an integral part of a company's global strategy, there is usually a lack of comprehensive information that highlights the differences in the respective national markets.

Xpert.Digital as an information and content hub offers extensive data, facts, figures and statistics, which are ideal for a revision, reorientation or a new start.

I line with these topics:

• Conquering the US market: data, numbers, facts and statistics
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E-commerce in the United Kingdom

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E-commerce in the United Kingdom – PDF Download

The United Kingdom (UK) has the most advanced e-commerce market in Europe. According to the most recent figures from the Office of National Statistics (UK), the country's e-commerce revenue in 2018 amounted to 688.4 billion GBP, a sharp increase on the year prior. On sectoral basis, wholesale and manufacturing were the two biggest industry sectors that generated the highest e-commerce sales in the same year.

Retail sector, where the UK leads the way in Europe, was responsible for around eight percent of e-commerce sales across all industries. In the retail sector alone, online sales constituted 19.4 percent of all retail in 2019, and is forecast to reach higher levels in the next years due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. In 2019, internet retail sales had grown by only 10.1 percent, the slowest rate recorded in the past decade. Online retailing had particular weight in textile and clothing stores, with the most recent governmental figures showing over one-fourth of retail sales coming from online.

In many markets in Europe, mobile commerce and mobile shoppers are taking precedence within e-commerce. In Great Britain, too, the share of smartphone users who shopped via mobile devices, especially smartphones, increased over the years. In parallel, the number of consumers who used mobile payment methods in their online transactions increased, with an expected growth of more than two million more users in 2019.

The online shopping landscape of the UK is getting more enriched with more and more consumers choosing to make purchases online. In 2020, as high as 87 percent of UK households made online purchases within the preceding 12 months, making this the highest online purchase penetration rate in the country in the past 11 years. Clothing and sports goods were especially popular purchases made online.

More detailed analyzes of online shopping behavior of consumers reveal that what drives shoppers to online retail channels is a mix of various motivations. A survey conducted in 2018 and 2019 found out that prices and choices were the biggest two factors. Another study on the payment patterns of online shoppers revealed that while conventional methods such as credit cards or debit cards still held a higher share, shoppers also accommodated online payment systems such as PayPal, or even digital wallets such as Google, Apple, and Amazon.

Social commerce in the United Kingdom

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Social commerce in the United Kingdom – PDF Download

Social commerce describes the use of social media platforms to promote, sell and purchase products and services. For example, users can browse products on Facebook and make purchases on the platform itself without having to visit a third-party website. As the use of digital technology for businesses becomes more popular, this convergence of social media and e-commerce provides companies with a means to simplify the purchasing process and leverage social media advertising for their brands.

While social media connects consumers, it also plays a role in connecting marketers with current and potential buyers. The marketing strategies used in social commerce engage online shoppers through graphics, recommendations, and customizable purchasing options.

Retailers and consumers have already turned their attention to automated chatbot and messaging app commerce as an extension of social commerce. However, unlike regular e-commerce, social commerce still needs time to reach the mainstream.

Digital marketing in the United Kingdom

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Digital marketing in the United Kingdom – PDF Download

Digital advertising in the United Kingdom

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Digital advertising in the United Kingdom – PDF Download

Advertising in the United Kingdom

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Advertising in the United Kingdom – PDF Download

With an annual spend of 29 billion US dollars in 2019, the United Kingdom (UK) is Europe's top-performing market when it comes to advertising spend and the fourth largest globally after the United States, China and Japan. Aside from a drop in 2017, advertising spend in the UK has managed to see consistent year-on-year growth since 2009. This is also forecast for 2020. As a whole, the advertising industry drives the economy by fueling competition, creating jobs, and funding media platforms such as websites and search engines. Digitalization, however, has led to significant changes in advertising formats in recent years. Search engines, online display, online radio and video on demand were advertising platforms that saw growth in 2018. Conversely, traditional advertising through print forms such as magazines, newspapers and mail saw a decline.

Digital advertising
advertisers are shifting their focus towards today's most popular platforms – namely, those online. Digital advertising industry spend has been on the rise since 2007, and isn't showing signs of slowing down. This amounted to 14 million British pounds in 2019, and was forecast to hit 15.6 million British pounds in 2020. In 2018, Google was the industry leader when it came to digital advertising with a 40 percent market share while Facebook in second place claimed 22.7 percent of the market share that year. However, being marketed to online clearly isn't everyone's cup of tea, with the percentage of adults in the UK using ad blockers having increased each year since 2015.

Social media advertising
Thanks to its wide reach and fast-growing user base – the majority of whom are tech-savvy millennials aged between 25-34 years old – social media and influencer marketing is growing rapidly. In 2018, this generated nearly 2.1 billion US dollars worth of revenue in the UK alone, the highest revenue in any European country. With social media penetration expected to increase year-on-year globally until 2025, the industry's outlook is bright. In a 2019 survey, 39 percent of UK retailers expected Facebook to drive the most value for their business over the next five years, while 18 percent said the same for YouTube and Instagram respectively.

Coronavirus impact on the industry
Advertising spend in the UK took a hit during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic. With cinema closures having lasted nearly 4 months across the nation, advertising spend on the big screen is expected to be affected the most. Search and online display advertising, on the other hand, were predicted to be the least affected by the lockdown. Things are looking up for 2021 though, with the industry expected not only to recover, but also see an overall 13.6 percent growth in expenditure.

Programmatic advertising in the United Kingdom

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Programmatic advertising in the United Kingdom – PDF Download

Within a decade, digital advertising spend in the United Kingdom has more than quadrupled, reaching 14 million British pounds in 2019. The largest share of that is programmatic, representing nearly 89 percent of the nation's total display advertising spend – more than that of the USA and the global average. Additionally, in 2019 the UK alone made up for 31 percent of the total programmatic advertising spend in Europe, the largest share among all countries. As a market leader in the programmatic industry, the UK is also forecast to continue to grow in this area, accounting for an annual spend of 6 billion British pounds by 2021. Most of that spend will be on video.

Programmatic ad agencies – transparency is key
While automated ad buying and selling comes with a host of positives – not the least of which is cost-efficiency – the rapid onset of programmatic advertising means there has been an increased strain on brands as they struggle to manage its various aspects. With needs ranging from database management to algorithm creation, many companies are not fully equipped to handle such demands and therefore resort to outsourcing certain areas of programmatic advertising, mainly in the areas of data management and campaign strategy. This is often done in conjunction with specialist partner agencies such as AppNexus and OpenX, which according to a late 2019 survey were the top two partners used by companies worldwide to manage their ad technology. What makes a partner agency stand out? According to global CMOs (chief marketing officers) transparency is the main factor when it comes to selecting a partner.

A shift to private marketplaces?
While the total spend of programmatic advertising in the UK is forecast to rise until 2021, most of it will come from direct deals, ie deals between a seller and buyer rather than real time bidding (RTB) via an ad exchange. A shift towards private marketplaces is also expected within real-time ad buying and is forecast to comprise over half of all RTB spend by 2021. Unsurprisingly, this shift follows a rise in worldwide digital ad fraud, which is expected to cost the industry 44 billion US dollars alone in 2022.

Ad placement and attitudes to targeted advertising
Most consumers agree that placement influences whether an ad is perceived as trustworthy or not, with increased negative perception particularly if an ad was placed next to controversial content. Overall, it appears that feelings towards targeted advertising are still mixed, with 68 percent of UK adults admitting they were still uncomfortable with the idea.

Search engines in the UK

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Search engines in the United Kingdom – PDF Download

Today, a mention of the term search engine brings to mind giants such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, as well as smaller players such as DuckDuckGo and Yandex. Despite the rising popularity of alternative search tools in recent years – mainly due to concerns about data privacy – Google has remained the top player, holding roughly 90 percent of the industry share worldwide since 2010.

Skepticism towards search engines
Although search engines are now a part of daily life, consumers remain critical and trust in search results varies. Roughly 60 percent of respondents surveyed from 2012 to 2019 believed that search engines presented a mix of both biased and unbiased information. In contrast, only around 20 percent believed in the validity of all displayed results. This skepticism against search engines does not come as a surprise, however, particularly in light of paid political advertising. Google for example, was particularly complicated in this during the 2019 European Parliament Elections. That year in the United Kingdom alone, the search giant received 48 thousand euros for running political advertisements.

Advertising
Machine learning and programmatic advertising has also enabled search engines to display suitable ads to audiences in real time. Additionally, top search engines like Google have also built up some of the largest consumer databases consisting of information such as purchase history and location. This, combined with the aforementioned technology creates a tool that far outstrips other advertising methods. In fact, search engine advertising alone brings in by and large the biggest share of digital advertising revenue in the United Kingdom, outstripping social media, banners, video and classifieds.

Market share in the UK
Second to Google in the United Kingdom is Microsoft's Bing, with a 10 percent market share followed by Yahoo! and DuckDuckGo. Despite experiencing a large dip in market share twice since 2015 – instances that coincided with the European Union's antitrust fines against the company – Google's trajectory isn't showing signs of slowing down. The Silicon Valley giant has also commanded over 90 percent of the mobile search industry since 2014. As of January 2020 this stood at a staggering 97.9 percent, a near total-market dominance.

Consumer search habits
So powerful is the influence of search engines that 70 percent of consumers in the United Kingdom rely on them when deciding which purchases to make. In contrast, only 42 percent rely on customer reviews. The most searched keyword on Google from January to April 2020 was “airpods”.

Google in the United Kingdom

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Google in the United Kingdom – PDF Download

This PDF presents insights and statistics on Google in the United Kingdom (UK), providing information on the internet company's online services. The paper presents information on Google's advertising revenues worldwide as well as in the UK and its search engine market share. It also includes chapters on Google's mobile operating system Android and the Google-owned video sharing platform YouTube.

Out-of-home advertising in the United Kingdom

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Out-of-home advertising in the United Kingdom – PDF Download

Out-of-home (OOH) advertising is, put simply, advertising that reaches people while they are in public places. In the United Kingdom, OOH advertising can be seen on roadside billboards, digital screens in shopping malls, and on bus shelters, as well as on the sides of buses. These are just a few examples; Advertisers are always searching for new ways to reach consumers with one of the oldest forms of advertising that exists.

Outdoor ads can be incredibly effective. One reason for this is that they are, in a way, one of the purest forms of advertising. Online ads, in contrast, are always competing with content and often even disguised as the content itself, and so the ad can easily get lost or simply be ignored by consumers as they go about their busy internet lives. Outdoor advertising, on the other hand, will always stand out.

Another reason OOH advertising works so well is its potential to reach large numbers of people, in a targeted area, over and over again. Most people will see outdoor ads on a daily basis, with ad impressions and coverage being even greater in big cities like London and Birmingham.

These are just a couple of reasons why out-of-home advertising spend has been increasing, and it's forecast to grow even more in the coming years. Outdoor advertising revenues in the United Kingdom have also been on the up, a trend that can be seen throughout Europe and the advertising world generally. Digital out-of-home in particular is being invested in by advertisers and outdoor media companies, with more and more digital screens appearing in public spaces.