The Index showed continued growth of online spending in early 2018, with smartphone spending especially strong (+38.5%). Fashion sales also managed a 14.9% rise, with accessories and footwear the top performers within this, rising 22.3% and 20.4% respectively. And health & beauty rose at the highest rate in five years (+33.85%) while gifts rose 9%.Yet the fact that more and more people are researching online rather than going there to simply buy meant that conversion rates fell to 4.2% from 4.6% a year ago. Conversion rates for both pureplay and multichannel retailers weakened, although that doesn’t necessarily mean bad news. 

The fact is that everyone is spending much more time online just browsing and so conversion rates were always bound to dip. But as the sales rise shows, …