It wasn’t only the high street that suffered a festive slowdown – on-line shopping in general also dipped 3% during the traditionally lucrative period. However, some e-tailers did buck this trend and a study shows that while consumers spent less, more shoppers went on-line to shop in November and December 2008.

Now e-commerce forecasters are predicting that if businesses are hoping to beat the credit crunch – and have a successful, long-term business – then e-tail is the only way to do it.

At the same time e-rail analysts have revealed that the fastest growing on-line product genre in recent months has been sports and fitness. Next up was video games and consoles. In third place was clothing and accessories.

Those e-tailers suffering the biggest credit crunch hit include office supplies, music and movies, jewellery and computer hardware.

Are you an e-tailer that is bucking or confirming this trend?

It wasn’t only the high street that suffered a festive slowdown – on-line shopping in general also dipped 3% during the traditionally lucrative period. However, some e-tailers did buck this trend and a study shows that while consumers spent less, more shoppers went on-line to shop in November and December 2008.

Now e-commerce forecasters are predicting that if businesses are hoping to beat the credit crunch – and have a successful, long-term business – then e-tail is the only way to do it.

At the same time e-rail analysts have revealed that the fastest growing on-line product genre in recent months has been sports and fitness. Next up was video games and consoles. In third place was clothing and accessories.

Those e-tailers suffering the biggest credit crunch hit include office supplies, music and movies, jewellery and computer hardware.

Are you an e-tailer that is bucking or confirming this trend?

While it should have this effect, it has also been labelled a ‘retailer nightmare’ as thousands of shops up-and-down the country are faced with re-labelling their products. Luckily for an e-commerce store, this process can be as simple as flicking a switch

Most stores have a setting for VAT which can be easily changed via an administration area giving a considerable advantage over offline retailers.  Not that this is all plain-sailing however; you will still need to check that your pricing is consistent if you do have an offline presence such as a mail-order catalogue or store.

Whether this will indeed result in more custom is a matter of conjecture. If your standard product retails at say £100 including VAT then a customer will save about £2.23 if the full saving is passed on to the customer, hardly enough to make them buy a few more.  It also seems likely that many retailers will elect to ‘absorb’ these savings into prices. Also, if your customers are mainly businesses with balanced outgoings then the VAT change is largely neutral.

Either way in what was expected to be a good Christmas for online businesses, despite the Credit Crunch any additional stimulus can only be a good thing – just make sure you save a little back for when taxes go back up in the near future…