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THE IRISH ECOMMERCE sector is thriving but face-to-face sales are declining, it has been warned.
Overall spending rose by 3.6% year-on-year in December but this increase was the weakest registered since the consumer spending index began in 2014.
The report by Visa found that online spending is growing at “a substantial pace”, registering a rise of 15.4%. Shop sales dropped by 0.3%.
According to the report, the clothing and footwear sector continues to struggle, with expenditure declining for the fifth month running.
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While the overall rate of consumer spending has continued to slow, December was a positive month for most sectors.
Growth
Spending on household goods rose by 4.3% with consumers purchasing items like home appliances as gifts. Hotels, restaurants and bars saw the rate of expansion quicken to a three-month high of 5.8% year-on-year.
There was also a spike in entertainment over the festive period. Food and drink businesses also posted a return to growth of spending of 2.9% compared to 2015′s figures.
Visa’s country manager, Philip Konopik, said: “The large shift to online shopping in the run-up to Christmas continued in December with consumers seeking to take advantage of the value on offer from UK online retailers due to the sterling exchange rate.
Despite this there are a number of positives to be drawn from the data, with a range of sectors such as hotels, restaurants, bars and grocery retailers clearly benefiting from the festive period.
“The last quarter has seen the growth in overall consumer spending slip below five percent each month however, and it will be interesting to observe whether this trend continues into the first quarter of 2017.”
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Not going to get a straight answer from them & anyway never mind about the 10% when are we going to see the rest fall back to where it was in jan 2022. They were still making plenty of profit and still gouging us but at least we had a chance of paying it. Electric Ireland have been putting their hands in our pockets for years it’s about time we cut it off. Some of us need electricity for water that’s the sad part of it. They don’t seem to understand that we have other bills to pay. They can’t come first every time. Most of us live pay-check to pay-check. We pay bills as we go, some months you just have to sit back and be quiet because we just don’t physically have the money to give you. And no amount of texts, phone calls and nasty letters will get you the money any faster.
Show me any other necessity of life that is subject to the whims of big business like the electricity supply. It should be protected like water is. Or at least the government should give a 100% grant to fit solar PV panels. The way it is now you have to have the cash to pay for it before you can get them. I don’t know about you lot but I don’t have a spare €15 never mind a spare €15,000-€20,000
@Don Hogan: I don’t know what the price of pints has to do with anything I don’t drink and I haven’t been out to a pub in 5 years and my smartphone is the most basic model, I upgrade only when my old phone dies which is what happened to my last phone. An old iPhone 5 I kept it going long after apple had stopped supporting it.. so if your implying I’m living high on the hog then I’m not. I’m barely scraping by.
This is crazy, this is how we’re driving young people and not only young people just the population out of this country. The big companies are skyrocketing prices and giving us no hope. Record profits year on year, draining our pockets and filling theirs.
Bring the whole energy sector into public ownership, then each year have a price increase equal or less than CPI %. No complaints about price gouging then.
You are in government. You have the power to do something about it. You are more than well paid by the people of this country so do something for them for a change instead of just talking about it.
The business sector was hit with hikes before the residential. In June 22 i was paying on a retail unit 55c per unit. From an initial 21c when i had opened the account the July before COVID. I believe it’s fair they reduce it as the price hikes closed us down.. if it returns to normal we wight return as well ..
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