A new report just out from Forrester Research highlights the opportunity for growth for online retail in Europe over the next 5 years. They predict that sales will increase by 11% per annum in the largest EU Nations.
Forrester Research - Sales Increase in Largest EU Nations
There is however a strong divide between countries in Northern and Southern Europe. The latter (eg. Spain and Italy) are expected to experience higher growth rates because adoption is much lower than the 50% or so of UK residents who purchase regularly online.
Forrester predicts that multichannel, mobile and social media will all play key roles in future development of online retail so all ecommerce websites should have a strategy to exploit these areas.
On a more local level, there was positive data this week from the British Retail Consortium that reported that internet and mail order sales were up by 15% in February in contrast to the weaker growth reported for January by the IMRG (just 5% for online sales). It seems that the cold weather persuaded many people to shop at home/work rather than brave the Hight Street.
