Europe’s second-largest e-commerce market, France, outpaced Britain and Germany with a 22% risein e-commerce sales last year, according to figures presented today by the country’s e-commerce
association and the French industry minister Eric Besson.French consumers increased their online spending by 22% to €37.7 billion last year with thenumber of active internet shoppers rising 11% to more than 30 million and the number of onlineretail websites going up by 23% to top the 100,000 level, the French distance-selling ande-commerce association Fevad announced at a joint press conference with the minister in Paris.
In comparison, British e-retail sales are estimated to have grown 16% last year to £68 billion(€81 billion), according to e-commerce association IMRG, while the German e-commerce market isexpected by distance-selling association bvh to have grown about 17% to €22 billion last year. TheUK, France and Germany together represent an estimated 70% of the European e-commerce market.
The 2011 figures for France reflected the strong Christmas online sales with at least €7.6billion being spent online compared to €6.3 billion one year earlier, Fevad said. The totalnumber of transactions increased to 420 million last year from 340 million in 2010, with theaverage spending per transaction falling slightly to €90. But the average number of onlinepurchases per year by French consumers increased to 14, with total average annual spending of€1,250.
Mobile commerce is continuing to grow rapidly with a fast rise in the number of consumers usingsmartphones to make online purchases, Fevad noted.
“I welcome these excellent results which will have enabled the creation of at least 3,000permanent jobs in this sector in 2011,” Besson declared. The French e-commerce sector now accountsfor more than 60,000 jobs spread across the country, the minister stressed.
The French e-commerce figures for 2011 are based on results from the ‘Fevad iCE 40’ panel,covering the country’s largest commercial websites, and electronic payment services companies.Fevad itself has 550 members operating a total of 800 websites.
The five leading commercial websites in France in Q4, 2011 by number of visitors were Amazon,Fnac, eBay, PriceMinister and Cdiscount, according to a separate survey by Mediametrie/NetRatingsin cooperation with Fevad.
