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Date:21 July 2010

Ecommerce Still Growing: Actinic Survey Shows SMEs’ Orders Up 39% and Revenue Up 15% in Q2 2010

West Byfleet, Surrey -- 21 July 2010 -- Ecommerce software specialist Actinic (www.actinic.co.uk) has completed its first quarterly survey of UK small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which highlights a healthy increase in revenue of 15% in the three months to June 2010 when compared to the same period in 2009. However, e-retailers have had to increase their order volumes substantially by 39% to achieve this growth as the average order value has dropped by 17%.

The Actinic survey shows that although online sales are growing faster than in the high street, the average shopping cart value has declined slightly from £87.09 in Q2 2009 to £72.35 in Q2 2010. This decrease means e-retailers had to work harder to achieve the increase in revenue with promotional offers, discounted lines or focusing on lower value items. On average an extra 262 orders were processed by each e-retailer during the quarter when compared to the same period the previous year.

Jez Hall, director of garden machinery supplier www.mowermagic.co.uk comments: “We have noticed a shift in customer purchasing behaviour for the second quarter of 2010, due to the economic climate. Our range of garden machinery is still selling well but we have experienced a significant increase in spare part sales as customers, make do and mend, rather than replace garden equipment. This trend has helped our bottom line as the margins we can achieve with spare parts can be higher than selling the larger ticket items such as lawn mowers.”
He adds, “Without wanting to put a dampener on this year’s long hot summer, the lack of rain does mean gardens are not flourishing. However with our sales revenues up 12% on the second quarter of 2009 figures, we are not complaining.”

Nick Kington, managing director at Actinic says, “This is another impressive performance by online sellers in the SME market and in line with Sales Index figures reported by the IMRG in June. Despite the economic climate many Actinic retailers are seeing very positive signs that consumer confidence and online spending in particular is on the increase.”

Contacts:

Simon Armstrong, marketing manager, Actinic, 0845 129 4800, sarmstrong@actinic.co.uk
Actinic PR: Jane Lee, Dexterity, 01273 470199, actinic at dexterity.co.uk

About Actinic:

Founded in 1996, Actinic (www.actinic.co.uk) is a British company specialising in helping small and medium retailers trade, both online and offline, using its ecommerce and electronic point of sale (EPOS) packages.

Actinic offers ecommerce products for web designers and self-builders, including both web-based and desktop solutions. The range includes Actinic Enterprise, Actinic Business, Actinic Catalog, Actinic Express and Actinic Designer. Actinic powers more UK ecommerce sites than any other company.

Actinic EPOS systems give a comprehensive feature set that is straightforward to operate at great value. The range extends from a low cost, single till installation for the smaller store, to integrated multi-till and multi-site systems with head office functionality for centralised product, stock and price updating and reporting.

Trademarks: Actinic, Actinic Catalog, Actinic Business, Actinic Express and Actinic Designer are registered trademarks of Actinic Software Limited.

Keywords

Actinic, ecommerce software, ecommerce, shopping cart, sme, online sales, survey