Conversely, a refund for an item purchased online can be taken off a store’s bottom line without it being credited for the original sale. This can have a significant impact for leases where there is a turnover provision.

Until now, the relationship between omnichannel sales and returns and their impact on stores has not been explored. Savills has conducted a survey among nearly 2,000 occupiers across its managed shopping centre portfolio to understand more about the relationship between store and omnichannel sales.

NB – when referring to ‘online’ sales this includes mobile also.

Headlines

■ On average 10% of store sales come from online

■ In addition, an average of 8% of store sales come from click & collect purchases

■ Nearly half of physical stores refund online returns

■ One in five stores are credited for online sales in their catchment – however one in three have online returns / refunds deducted from the store’s sales

■ This means, on average, stores are 1.6 times more likely to be penalised for online returns than to be credited for online sales within their catchment

■ At a category level, Accessories were nearly 10 times more likely to be penalised for an online return than to be credited for an online sale

■ Conversely, Grocery and Food and Beverage categories saw a positive differential between online sales and online returns

■ At a geographical level, stores in the South East were most likely to be credited for online sales, with stores in the North East least likely

■ In addition, stores in the North East were most likely to have online returns deducted from store sales

The following report shows a breakdown of the various findings. Research was conducted with store managers within shopping centres managed by Savills across the UK between January and October 2017.