Web sales thriving in Europe

Europe's 45 countries, combined, are the world's biggest e-commerce market, according to Forrester Research, a US-based research organization, with total web-based sales of €232 billion. This represents a 16 per cent gain over the previous year. But conventional retailers do not dominate it. According to Internet Retailer, a specialist magazine, Europe's Top 500 sellers accounted for € 93.6 billion, of which web-only retailers accounted for a slightly larger share of those sales than conventional retailers. Actually, there are two different European markets for web sales, Forrester says. In the 27 countries comprising the European Union, web sales are well established compared to those recorded in southern Europe and the emerging economies of Eastern Europe, led by Russia. However, web sales are growing faster in the latter areas compared to those in the European Union as consumers there become more accustomed to visiting the Internet and more comfortable making web purchases. While shoppers in America freely buy from web sellers anywhere in that sprawling country, European buyers tend to buy only from sellers based in their own country. Accenture reports that only about nine per cent of all European e-commerce sales take place across country borders. What that means is that major web-only retailers such as Amazon are now providing localized web sites and online offers, likewise Germany's Otto Group and the UK's Tesco, in order to achieve maximum sales in each country. In a listing of Europe's 500 largest web sellers, published by Internet Retailer magazine, there are 26 retailers whose sales include some DIY and hardware products. The top 100 merchants in Europe's top 500 accounted for more than 80 per cent of the top 500's sales and the top ten alone accounted for 37 per cent of the total, a far greater concentration among the bigger retailers than in the U. S. Amazon alone accounted for 5.3 per cent of all European e-commerce sales, according to Internet Retailer. It now has a network of 22 distribution centers in Europe to provide products to buyers quickly. Amazon is the dominant threat to conventional retailers of all types throughout Europe. International sales are growing at a rate of more than 20% annually, far surpassing growth rates of traditional retailers. Its European distribution and fulfillment centers are located in the UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Slovakia and Spain, and it already operates separate retail web sites to court customers in UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and has announced future sites for Poland, Netherlands and Sweden. During 2012, web sales of hardware and home improvement products as a distinct category slightly exceeded € 1 billion, the magazine reported. This represented a growth of 5.6 per cent over the previous year. But it substantially lagged sales of housewares and home furnishings (€ 5 billion) and even sporting goods (€ 1.1 billion). Housewares/home furnishings sales grew a very impressive 16.4 per cent and sporting goods an even more impressive 26.9 per cent. From those low numbers, one can assume one of two things: DIY products are not among those highly desired by web shoppers or conventional DIY retailers have not been very effective in creating web sites that encourage web shopping. The UK's Kingfisher was the largest DIY web seller with web sales of € 484.9 million. This was up e20 million from 2011. Wickes, another UK DIY retailer, recorded web sales of € 285.5 million in 2012. It too gained € 20 million over the preceding year. After those two, web sales of conventional DIY retailers drop sharply. France's Leroy Merlin, which operates in several European countries and is one of the largest conventional DIY retailers, came in third with sales of € 153 million, up only € 5 million. Far down the list was Bauhaus of Germany, whose site focuses primarily on boating and boating-related products. Its web sales last year were only € 62.3 million, Internet Retailer reported. It was closely followed by Hornbach, another German DIY chain, whose web sales were € 61.6 million. Robert Dyas, a UK chain of small hardware stores, was the lowest ranked DIY retailer among Europe's Top 500, with web sales of € 3.3million. However, there were a number of other retailers, conventional and web-only, whose products include DIY merchandise, and whose sales ranked well above any of the DIY chains. Those were, naturally, headed by Amazon, whose European web sales were € 12.2 billion. How much of those sales were of DIY products is unknown, unfortunately. England's Home Retail Group, parent of the Argus retail chain, ranked second among those retailers whose product sales could include DIY products. Its overall web sales reached € 3 billion in 2012. It slightly edged out Tesco, another UK retailer whose primary business is food retailing, but whose web site includes DIY and garden products among other non-food categories. Its 2012 web sales were € 2.9 billion. In its publication providing data about Europe's Top 500, Internet Retailer also provided information about web sales in a number of European countries. Turkey, at 13 per cent, had the highest percentage of web sales to total sales, followed by the UK at 11 per cent. The UK also recorded the highest overall web sales at $ 52.4 billion, with Germany in second place with $ 35.5 billion. Hungary recorded the fewest web sales with only $ 780.6 million. Web sales accounted for only 1.1 per cent of total sales in Romania and only 1.4 per cent of Italy's total sales. European web sales by country
Country
Web sales
Total sales
Web %
Austria
$2.2 billion
$77.9 billion
2.90%
Belgium
$1.45 billion
$97 billion
1.50%
Czech Republic
$2.1 billion
$36.5 billion
6.00%
France
$32 billion
$529.7 billion
6.00%
Germany
$35.5 billion
$541.6 billion
6.60%
Hungary
$780.6 million
$$36.5 billion
2.10%
Ireland
$4.1 billion
$40 billion
10.30%
Italy
$5.2 billion
$371.2 billion
1.40%
Netherlands
$6 billion
$121.4 billion
5.00%
Poland
$6.7 billion
$99.7 billion
6.80%
Romania
$335 million
$30.4 billion
1.10%
Russia
$12 billion
$305.8 billion
3.90%
Spain
$5.1 billion
$279.5 billion
1.90%
Sweden
$3.2 billion
$73.7 billion
4.40%
Switzerland
$3.5 billion
$95.6 billion
3.70%
Turkey
$19 billion
$144.7 billion
13.10%
United Kingdom
$52.4 billion
$463 billion
11.30%Source: Internet Retailer