The Brexit referendum had economic implications far beyond the United Kingdom. Pension funds in the US lost value and the GBP’s fall against the Euro will cause a spike in prices – and a drop in sales – outside of the UK. However, sales among UK retailers online increased dramatically among non-UK residents in the week since the Brexit referendum on June 23. Number of sessions, conversions and sales increased among retailers, as cart-abandonment numbers dropped. Conversely, sales among UK residents dropped significantly when compared to previous weeks.

The strengthening of foreign currencies against the GBP lead non-UK consumers to purchase from UK retailers at a significantly higher rate than usual. Barilliance analyzed sales data among 50 UK retailers that use the Barilliance e-commerce personalization technology and revealed that:

Non-UK residents have increasing their visits and purchases on UK sites*

• Shopping sessions: +6%
• Conversion:+28.70%
• Sales: +30%
• Cart abandonment rate: -1.30%

The numbers for UK residents are very different – they browsed more, but made significantly less purchases

• Shopping sessions: +4.40%
• Conversion: +1.50%
• Sales: +3.40%
• Cart abandonment rate: +2.30%

Based on this data, Barilliance encourages UK retailers to increase advertising and marketing budgets geared at foreign consumers by implementing geo-targeted campaigns.

*The data was gathered from June 23- June 30 and was compared with data from the previous week