As per eMarketer data from Insider Intelligence, e-commerce continued to drive UK textile, clothing, and footwear sales in the first half of 2021 and will make up 48.5 per cent of the category's sales by the end of the year. The category's retail ecommerce sales in the UK will approach $20 billion in 2021. The proportion of textile, clothing and footwear sales in UK’s total e-commerce sales is likely to decline from 12.2 per cent in 2019 to 10.4 per cent in 2025. The proportion of ecommerce sales in the UK in this category increased to 37.6 per cent in 2020 from 23.3 per cent in 2019.

Retail sales in the category are likely to decline by 3.9 per cent in 2021 after plummeting by 23.5 per cent in 2020. During the pandemic-induced lockdowns in 2020, many UK-based shoppers confined to their homes saw little need to shop for apparel, and even now, as restrictions ease, apparel will still not be a consumer focus.