E-commerce continued to boom in France last year with sales growing by 26% to €25 billiondespite a 1.4% drop in overall French retail spending, according to an annual study by Fevad, the
French distance sales and e-commerce federation.According to Fevad, e-commerce spending in France is due to exceed €30 billion in 2010,representing further growth of 20%. This will generate additional B2C home delivery volumes forparcel carriers.
In 2009, the sites on the Fevad/iCE 30 panel, covering 30 major commercial websites, increasedtheir turnover by 8% to €8.9 billion, representing more than a third (36%) of total internet salesin France.
Growth over one year (on a like-for-like basis) has therefore remained steady for the leadingsites, especially due to strong fourth quarter results. The acceleration in growth in the lastquarter benefited all sectors represented on the panel, Fevad said.
This is especially true of technical products which have increased 8% and textile/fashionproducts whose sales have grown by 13%. Both have managed to retain their 2008 levels of growththrough 2009, partly as a result of the success of second-hand sales leading up to Christmas andthe New Year period. After a difficult start to the year, B2B sites returned to growth in the lastquarter (up 5%).
The study, also supported by the Secretary of State for Commerce, is based on information from37 leading websites and on transaction volumes handled by the main payment services providers onbehalf of more than 64,000 websites.
In 2009, the number of bank card transactions handled by payment platforms increased by 31%(compared with 33% in 2008). In total, the number of transactions carried out via e-commerce sitesin 2009 is estimated at 277.8 million.
The average spend in 2009 was €90, down 2% compared with 2008. After a net decrease in the firsthalf-year (down 4%), average spend recovered in the third quarter (down 1%) before returning topositive growth in the final quarter (up 2%).
The number on online shoppers in France grew by 2.1 million to 24.4 million last year, accordingto the latest results from Médiamétrie’s Internet Usage Observatory, published in conjunction withthe e-commerce assessment. The number rose by 9% in the fourth quarter in the run-up to Christmas.The number of ‘cyberconsumers’ aged 50 to 64 rose by 13% last year.
On the supply side, the number of active merchant sites went up by 35% to 64,100 last year, thestudy showed. The average number of transactions per site is continuing to increase. For instance,the number of sites recording less than 10 transactions per month has fallen again (29.9% in 2009compared with 55% in 2005) while the number of sites achieving 100 to 1000 transactions per monthis increasing (14% in 2005 compared with 21.1% in 2009). Finally, 500 sites handle more than 10,000orders per month and around 50 handle more than 100,000.
