Click and collect worth more than £2.5bn to Scottish economy, report finds

Click and collect shopping will be worth more than £2.5 billion in Scotland this year, a report has found.

The figure represents around 38.4% of the total retail income in Scotland, the What’s In Store For Retail? report by Barclays Corporate Banking said.

This is up from 27.6% a year ago.

It follows the broader UK trend which has seen the click and collect economy grow to be worth more than £42.4 billion in 2022, representing 8.4% of the industry’s total income.

But the report also warned business rates, supplier, transport and logistics costs are currently placing the biggest strain on retailers’ profitability.

Consumers north of the border are also looking to cut 26.2% of their retail outgoings in the months ahead as the rising cost of living begins to take hold.

The popularity of click and collect services grew during the pandemic and has continued to do so after lockdown eased, which the study says shows it is a consumer behaviour here to stay.

Despite a rise in online shopping, the report states there is still support for high streets. Around 65% of consumers agreed there is a future for physical retail space and around 86% of retailers in Scotland feel having a physical shop is vital to their business success.

Around 14,000 jobs are also dependent on the sector, with over a third of physical shops in Scotland now being used as click and collect locations and four in 10 used to process returns.

Euan Murray, relationship director at Barclays Corporate Banking, said: “Perhaps more than any other sector over the past two years, retail has been forced into a period of accelerated evolution. The pandemic drove everyone online, and now the rising cost of living is increasing business outgoings while reducing consumer spending.

“Encouragingly for the UK’s retail sector, however, businesses are adapting their sales models to weather these financial storms as effectively as possible. Links between digital and physical shopping are being evolved, which are opening up new opportunities and ways to generate income.”