FEVAD, the French federation for e-commerce and distance selling, has just published its latest figures. 2021 e-Commerce key figures . Soledis has analysed these 12 pages of online consumer graphs to help you understand e-commerce trends in 2021 and take stock of your online business.
Unsurprisingly, Covid-19 is a growth gas pedal for e-commerce
- Increase in overall sales generated online (+8.5%), but with a sharp contrast between sales of products (+32%) and sales of services in general (-10%) and travel-leisure in particular (-41%),
- Increase :
- in the number of buyers (+1.5 million). Even among the over-65s: almost 74% have passed the milestone,
- frequency of purchases,
- in average transaction value (+2.61TP3Q), whereas it had been falling for 8 years,
- in the number of merchant sites (+121TP3Q)
Many retailers have taken the plunge into e-commerce thanks to Covid-19 :
- Click and collect (chosen by 41% shoppers) and local delivery keep the local link alive.
- 64% of shoppers are in favor of grouping together local retailers on an online sales platform.
- 52% of new e-retailers have seen an increase in sales and footfall in their physical store since they started e-commerce, while only 39% of merchants who only operate offline have seen growth.
In BtoB, acquired habits are set to last
- The digitalization of BtoB business relationships is gathering pace. Video supplier meetings, digital processes for validating decisions and signing documents, online orders... the customer-supplier relationship is being reinvented.
- 34% of BtoB customers surveyed have bought more online because of the crisis. For 70% of them, this is now a given!
- 37% consider that the remote relationship with suppliers works very well, 21% regret the physical meetings and 39% would like to have physical meetings again only at key moments.
- Another important development to take into account when creating online content: before ordering online, 60% of BtoB customers look for information, and this is mainly on distributor sites (59%) rather than on manufacturer sites (15%) or customer reviews (15%).
Need to adapt your BtoB buying tunnel? BtoB e-commerce is our specialty.
Buyers push for eco-responsibility in the e-commerce market
- Buyers group orders together to limit deliveries, give preference to French sites, relay point delivery and purchases of products from the circular economy, and finally sort and recycle the packaging of their orders. 53% take environmental, responsible or ethical considerations into account in their online shopping habits.
- E-merchants are on board, since CSR issues are a 2021 priority for 89% of them.
- According to 67% of e-buyers surveyed by FEVAD, e-commerce facilitates access to products from the circular economy. Nearly one in 2 e-buyers has already bought a recycled, reconditioned or second-hand product online.
- To help buyers feel less guilty, Fevad points out that in France*, Internet sales of non-food products generate an average of 400g of CO2 per product sold, compared with 600g for physical commerce. This is half the European average.
Preparing the future of your e-commerce business
Do you sell on marketplaces?
Fevad notes a concentration of players and the growing success of marketplaces: 1% of sites account for 75% of market sales.
What payment methods do you offer on your e-commerce site?
80% of online purchases are paid for by credit card, but there has been an increase in payments by e-wallets.
Is your site perfectly responsive?
As in previous years, mobile and tablet purchases are on the rise (39.6% of purchases vs 32% in 2019).
What delivery methods do you offer?
Buyers have a clear preference for home delivery (chosen by 86% of buyers), collection from a relay point (64%), then click and collect (41%).
Multilingual websites, international delivery, search engine optimization (SEO and SEA)... are you ready to sell internationally?
70 % of sites anticipate an increase in their share of international sales over the next two years
Soledis can help you with all these needs
*Oliver Wyman 2021 economic and environmental impact study
