Adobe Digital Insights reports that UK consumers spent £49.7 billion online between January 1 and June 25, 2025—a year-on-year increase of just 1.6%. Weak performance in May (-1.2%) and June (+1.4%) underlines a looming “summer squeeze,” despite ongoing discounting and low online prices.
June 2025 Highlights
- £7.5 billion spent June 1–25, up 1.4% YoY
- Video games surged 94% on normal levels, driven by the Nintendo Switch 2 launch and category promotions
- Appliances: +20%
- Jewellery: +15%
- Apparel: +8%
- Father’s Day boosted:
- Books +21%
- Gift cards +52%
- Barbecues +42%
- Cookware +16%
H1 2025 Trends
- H1 spending: £49.7 billion, up only £800 million vs. H1 2024
- Jan–Apr growth: +2.7%
- May decline: –1.2%; June slowdown: +1.6%
- Category price changes impacted spending power:
- Electronics: –12.6%
- Apparel: –8.0%
- Furniture: –3.8%
- Groceries: +2.8%
Prime Day in Focus
With mid-year sales flagging, retailers are banking on July’s four-day Amazon Prime Day to drive a surge in spending. To capitalise, they should plan complementary promotions and flash sales.
GenAI Revolution in Retail
- AI search traffic to UK retail sites is up 1,200% since August 2024.
- AI-referred shoppers spend 23% longer on-site than visitors from other channels.
- AI conversion rates doubled between April and June 2025, closing the gap with non-AI referrals (non-AI conversions were only 38% higher in June, down from 89% in October 2024).
Brands must optimise for GenAI visibility. Adobe LLM Optimizer helps retailers appear in AI chatbots’ shopping results by tracking and improving “agentic” traffic from large-language-model platforms.
As consumer confidence remains fragile, harnessing Prime Day momentum and GenAI discovery will be crucial for retailers seeking growth in the second half of 2025.
