“Online retail in Europe to grow 70% by 2017”

From 112 to 191 billion euro

According to Forrester online retail spending in
Europa will amount to 191 billion euro by 2017, compared to 112 billion euro last year. This would suggest a total rise of 70% and an
annual growth of 11%.

If so, Europe will make up some ground on the
US, where Forrester predicts an annual growth of approximately 9%. Online sales
in the US will rise from 178 billion euro to 286 billion euro in 2017. At the
moment e-commerce brings in about 8% of total retail sales in the United States,
by 2017 that should be well over 10%.

The United Kingdom still is and will remain the
country where online retail has made the biggest progress (see graph): today online
sales have a market share of 13% and Forrester predicts a rise to 15% by 2017.
Italian and Spanish e-commerce are at the back of the line, with only 2% of
total retail sales.

“E-commerce boost”

The research agency has a double explanation
for this worldwide “e-commerce boost”: on the one hand an ever growing number
of smartphones and tablets (more and more people have one or both and those
people are using their devices to shop online during their spare time) and on
the other hand you have a growing number of retailers that opt for a “omni-channel
retail experience”.

Forrester also points out that the growth of
e-commerce will come from current customers that will shop more online and that
will buy more expensive products, and less from new customers.