Europe lags behind with online sales of technical consumer goods

Ecommerce accounted for a third of the total value of technical consumer goods sold globally to consumers, but in Europe the online share is much lower. In 18 countries across Europe, the average online share is currently at 25 percent.

Although European ecommerce retailers are still below the global average, they’ve managed to steadily increase their shares over the past years, as the online share was at 21 percent in 2015. This is one of the findings from GfK’s study on the online sales of technical consumer goods.

Europeans comfortable with buying IT products online

According to this study, ecommerce giants from China will focus on product categories in Europe where other competitors have left some space or where product categories aren’t that well-presented online. For example, European consumers are comfortable with buying IT products online, which is shown by the 38 percent online share, but when it comes to buying telecommunication (21 percent), consumer electronics (22 percent) or small domestic appliances (28 percent) online, consumers in Europe are less eager to order online. But these categories have shown some high levels of online growth during the first half of this year. “These are the product sectors to watch for increasing levels of online sales activities”, GfK writes.

European Retail Alliance could help sector

The market research institute thinks that European electronics retailers working together – such as the European Retail Alliance formed by MediaMarktSaturn and Fnac Darty – will be able to address new challenges in the retail sector. They think these players can take advantage of their “unique omnichannel selling propositions”.