You have translated your website and you are ready to sell your products and services on the French market? Congratulations, this article sums up for you a few important figures you should know before you do business in France. Learn more about French customers’ expectations!
What is the state of e-commerce in France?
E-commerce in France has exceeded 95 billion euros in turnover in 2019 and should reach the symbolic 110 billion by 2020. A good reason to set up your business in France! Online sales continued to grow in 2019 in France, thanks in particular to an ever-increasing frequency of purchases online. All things that indicate great sales opportunities on the French market in 2020.
How do French people behave when thew buy online?
The average amount of transactions on an e-commerce site in France in 2019 was around 60 euros. The behaviour of the French online shoppers is changing, especially for the purchase of everyday items. We can also see a strong increase in the frequency of French people buying on the Internet. This leads to a jump in the number of transactions with more than 2.5 billion orders recorded, or +25.7% compared to 2018. The smartphone allows the emergence of uses that facilitate purchasing, which are now used by more than half of e-buyers. The volume of sales made on the marketplaces maintained its growth rate in 2019 at the same level as in 2018, with +16%. These sales through mobile phones represent an increasingly important part of the sites’ activity: they represent 30% of total sales For French consumers, the main expectations in terms of services and commitment of e-commerce sites are transaction security (57%) and personal data security (47%). Among payment security methods, fingerprinting is by far the most preferred authentication method (69%).
Which delivery method in France?
The two preferred delivery methods in France remain home delivery and relay point delivery. More innovative delivery options such as the possibility of returning products directly to your mailbox (13%), having them delivered to a neighbour (10%) or returning products from home by appointment (7%) are still little known and little used by e-buyers. On the other hand, subscriptions to express and unlimited delivery offers continue to grow: more than a third of e-buyers subscribe to them (36%), a score up by 2pts. Free delivery is an important criteria for almost all e-buyers. Excessive shipping costs are the primary reason customers abandon their basket.
Read our article to know more about delivery costs in France.