Report: shopping heats up in European regions

September may be two and a half months from Christmas but that didn't keep shoppers away from their favorite etailing hubs. According to recent reports from comScore, ecommerce sites saw seasonal increases in traffic as shoppers headed back to school and began thinking about the upcoming holiday season.

by Kristina Knight

In France two of the fastest growing hubs were shopping related. Online auctioneer Ebay showed 6% growth in September and Groupe PPR showed 5% growth, reaching nearly 9 million users.

Delphine Gatignol, comScore’s Business Development Manager for France said, “Seasonal trends had a significant impact on French Internet use in September. The start of the school year drove traffic to online retail sites."

Similar back-to-school trends were seen in the UK where Wikipedia showed the most growth (15%), attracting more than 13 million unique users. Amazon sites also showed strong growth as students went back to school; the online book and video seller grew by 3% and now holds a 42% reach into the region.

Finally in Germany e-tailing hubs also showed strong growth in September. Otto Groupe was the fastest growing retail property for the month with 8% growth (13 million uniques). Arcandor AG sites also showed good growth for the period and now reach nearly 40% of the German online audience.