European e-commerce sales set to surge upwards

Wednesday, June 4, 2014 - 11:10 by Graham Miller

A new report from Forrester has shown that safe shopping online will continue to increase across Europe over the next half decade, with annual growth rates set to sit at about 12 per cent up until at least 2018.

Because the UK has a more mature e-commerce market than many of its European neighbours, the annual growth over this period will be a slightly more modest 9.1 per cent. But this still means that within four years, over 15 per cent of all retail sales will be generated on the web, according to Internet Retailing.

British consumers spent £37.2 billion online in 2013, so while growth will not match the Spanish and Italian markets over the same period, it will still give the UK the lead in overall expenditure.

One of the main reasons that e-commerce is set to keep on growing is that more and more people across the continent are getting access to the internet. Just 65 per cent of the European population currently has the ability to carry out safe shopping online at home, but by 2018 this will have been boosted to 75 per cent, as connectivity rolls out in more areas and prices come down.

Report spokesperson, Michelle Beeson, said that consumers are being convinced to shop online not just because it is very convenient, but also as a result of the sheer range of choice that is available. Items which are available nowhere else can be snapped up via the web, which gives people more power to pick products they really want, rather than being limited to what is on offer at bricks and mortar outlets.

Meanwhile, the things holding e-commerce back from growing even more quickly are delivery costs and the issue with not being able to interact with products in the flesh before committing to a sale.