Europe sees strong growth in online retail

Year-on-year Growth

Across Europe, 160.6 million people visited online retail sites in the month of October 2007, an increase of five percent over October 2006. 

The October 2007 visitor base represents seventy percent of the total European Internet audience. In the U.K., traffic to retail sites grew 11 percent during this period, totaling 29 million unique visitors.

Online retail traffic in France also grew 11 percent, reaching 18.1 million unique visitors in October 2007.

In Germany, year over year growth remained relatively flat, with the sector attracting 22.7 million unique visitors in October. The lack of growth in Germany was likely due to the trade union strikes in the transport and service industries and the reported decline in consumer confidence.

“The fact that the online retail market now covers 70 percent of the European internet population and is still growing is impressive.” said Bob Ivins, comScore EVP of European Markets. “The stronger than average growth rates in the U.K. and France portend a healthy Christmas shopping season there.  The weakness in the German market is a cause for concern, especially if the strikes continue.”

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs

Top Ten U.K. Retail Properties

The U.K.’s online retail sector attracted 29 million unique visitors in October 2007, which amounts to 89 percent of the country’s total online user base in that month. The most popular property was online auction site eBay, which attracted 22.2 million unique visitors or 68 percent of the U.K.’s total Internet audience. eBay was followed by another pure play online retailer, Amazon Sites, which attracted 14.3 million unique visitors to gain a 44 percent reach.  The highest ranking multi-channel retail property was Apple Inc, with 10.5 million unique visitors.

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs

Top Ten French Retail Properties

In October, France’s online retail sector attracted 18.1 million unique visitors or 65 percent of the country’s total online population. Again, as in the case of both the U.K. and Germany, the most popular of these properties was  eBay, which attracted 11.4 million unique visitors to reach 41 percent of the total French Internet audience. The second largest property in the top ten was multi-channel retailer, Groupe PPR. This French property attracted 9.7 million unique visitors in October.

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs

Top Ten German Retail Properties

Germany’s online retail sector attracted 22.7 million unique visitors in October - reaching 68 percent of the country’s total online population. eBay attracted 17.4 million unique visitors or 52 percent of the total German Internet audience. eBay was visited by more than three million unique visitors than visited its nearest competitor, Otto Gruppe, the catalogue specialist, which attracted a total of 14.1 million visitors. As was the case in the U.K. and France, Apple Inc. enjoyed heavy visitation, attracting 4.3 million unique visitors. The site was the only multi-channel retailer to appear among the top ten online retail properties across all three of the European markets studied.

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs

Source: www.comscore.com