French e-commerce sales continue double-digit growth in Q3 2014

E-commerce sales in France continued to grow at a double-digit rate of 11% during the thirdquarter of 2014 despite the country’s flat economy while online Christmas sales are also expected

Based on this year’s Christmas sales forecast, Fevad expects e-commerce sales in France willreach €56 billion for the whole year 2014. Consumers are likely to buy more Christmas gifts onlineand are increasingly ready to use parcel shops or ‘click ‘n collect’ pick-up points as analternative to home delivery, surveys by the association showed.

During the first nine months of this year, the French e-commerce sector generated turnover of€40 billion, boosted by an increasing number of buyers (+7%) and the increase in purchasingfrequency (9% on average during the first nine months). However, the average spend per purchasecontinued to drop rapidly during the first three quarters, by 4% on average, to currently €81 andcould fall below €80 during the fourth quarter. The drop is compensated by the increasingpurchasing frequency now reaching 6.1 purchases per shopper and per quarter.

Despite the falling average spend per purchase, the average amount each online shopper spentduring the third quarter continued to increase by 5% to €491 (up from €465 during the third quarterof 2013).

The number of listed French webshops continued to increase dynamically to currently 154,600,with 17% growth being maintained for the third consecutive year. The number of French e-retailwebsites has multiplied tenfold in the last nine years.

Mobile commerce remains a dynamic growth factor in France. The iCM panel (mobile commerceindex), which measures sales from mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, mobile websites and apps),soared by 52% during the third quarter, compared to the same period last year. In the course of thelast 12 months, the iCM panel has surpassed the €1 billion mark in sales of products viasmartphones and tablets. Sales via mobile phones and tablets represent 15% of the revenuesgenerated from the websites which make part of the iCM, up from 11% in the third quarter of2013.

Marketplaces also continue to play an important role for the activity of certain panel websites,of which the sales are not calculated in the iCE 40. The index measuring sales volumes of themarketplaces (iPM) continued its strong growth with a 45% increase during the third quarter of thisyear, compared to the same period in 2013. The transactions on the market places reached 21% of thesales generated by the hosting websites in the third quarter of 2014, with the share more thandoubling (+126%) in two years.

The e-commerce association calculated that about 35 million internet users shopped online duringthe third quarter of 2014, which means 2.2 more million online shoppers in one year.

Fevad managing director Marc Lolivier commented: “In a difficult economic context, the Frenchare even more likely to turn to e-commerce for their purchases. While the number of internet usershas risen by 2% in one year, the number of online shoppers is growing even faster, by 7% comparedto last year.”

Looking ahead to Christmas, Fevad expects French consumers to spend over €11 billion online overthe holiday period, up from €10 billion during the last Christmas period, which would equal 10%growth. The increasing number of online shoppers and the purchasing frequency should continue tocompensate for the falling average spend per purchase.

Based on Fevad’s separate Christmas survey, 30 million internet users plan to purchase theirChristmas gift online, which represents 68% of all the internet users surveyed. The average amountto be spent both online and offline is estimated at €304, which is 5% less compared to last year.Still, online shoppers prefer the internet to buy Christmas presents, willing to spend 57% of their‘gift budget’ online. Interestingly, internet users aged 65 and older plan to spend more on theirChristmas gift online than their younger counterparts with €230 on average, which equals 59% oftheir overall gift budget.

However, almost half (47%) of the 1,702 respondents surveyed from 10-17 October 2014 admittedthey are feeling the impact of the difficult economic environment this year even more strongly thana year ago.

While the respondents use all digital channels to order their Christmas gifts, the majority ofthem (66%) plan to purchase items via their computers, 6% of mobile phone users via theirsmartphones and 22% via tablets.

In terms of products, 61% of the cyber buyers surveyed plan to buy cultural products forChristmas, with 44% favouring games and toys, 36% – clothes and accessories, 34% – concert andtheatre tickets while 33% will turn to high-tech products.

The growing trend goes towards ordering Christmas gifts online increasingly late as theconfidence of the online shoppers in e-retailers to deliver on time is growing. While the majority(55%) still plans to order their gifts before 1 December, the figure is 3% lower than last year,while 41% of online shoppers will place their orders between 1-15 December, which represents a 4%increase on last year. The remaining 5% want to order even later, after 15 December.

In terms of deliveries, 80% of the online shoppers still prefer their gifts to be delivered totheir homes while 62% are willing to pick up their orders from a parcel shop. What is remarkablethis year is that an increasing number (32%) of online shoppers think of picking up their itemsordered online from a store, compared to only 23% last year, which is a good example of combiningonline and offline channels, according to Fevad.

What is also encouraging is the satisfaction level of cyber buyers with their purchases duringthe last six months, which remains very high with 98%. “This satisfaction rate of 98% among theonline shoppers as well as the high number of French who decided to make all or part of theirChristmas purchases online are encouraging signs for e-retailers despite the difficult economicenvironment,” Lolivier concluded.