3 Statistics to Help Your Retail Business Prepare

In 2024 the UK’s sales in the retail industry hit £517 billion, a 1.4% increase compared to 2023.

We know all too well of the challenging times on the high street, and the ever increasing competition in the world of ecommerce, so here are three statistics to help you prepare your online retail business:

1. Around 75% of online retail shopping carts were abandoned in 2024.

The main causes for this? Unexpected extra costs, forced account creation and complicated checkout processes.

Having a less complicated address form in your website, that quickly populates, will help reduce cart abandonment as well as increasing conversion.

Website personalisation is an emerging B2B ecommerce trend, however, in the world of B2C this has long been ‘a must have’.

According to data from Forbes 64% of consumers said they preferred buying from companies that tailored their brand experience to their wants and needs, underscoring the demand for personalidation.

2. 81% of users believe the way a company treats their personal data, reflects the way it views them as a customer.

A further 75% of people will not purchase from organisations they don’t trust to handle their personal data.

Consumer concerns are growing over data governance. Most consumers are cautious with about businesses using their personal data for analytics – especially when transparency is lacking.

66% say they’d trust brand more if they were transparent about why they collect data and 55% would be more trusting if companies only collected what’s necessary.

Overall, people expect clarity, control and purpose when it comes to their data being captured.

Already this year we’ve witnessed two major breaches of the GDPR from both TikTok and Vodafone.

TikTok unlwafully transferred user data to China which resulted in a €530 million fine, while Vodafone Germany faced a €45 million penalty due to poor protection practices and internal security flaws.

Taking extra precautions to protect and keep your customer data accurate will help avoid disasters such as misdeliveries and unsolicited marketing. This contributes to consumer trust and customer retention.

3. £1.7 billion was stolen through fraud in 2024.

According to UK Finance’s Annual Fraud Report, £360.5 million was through remote purchase card not present (CNP) fraud, which has been fuelled by an ongoing data breach epidemic.

One of the most significant payment card breaches in 2024 involved Slim CD, a payment gateway provider.

Hackers infiltrated its systems for nearly a year, and they accessed sensitive data from 1.7 million credit card accounts. This included, names, addresses, card numbers and expiration dates – though not CVV codes.

Validating customer payments with accurate data will ultimately help your business to mitigate the risk of fraud and erroneous payments. Subsequently, this will save you time and money whilst instilling your customers with confidence/