European etailers show 5% YoY growth

Even before the holiday shopping rush began, European e-tailers were showing a nice improvement over 2006 traffic numbers. According to metrics firm comScore in October online retailers saw an increase in traffic of 5%.

by Kristina Knight

More than 160 million users visited retailing sites in October 2007 compared to 153.6 million users visiting retailing sites in October 2006.

“The fact that the online retail market now covers 70 percent of the European internet population and is still growing is impressive.” said Bob Ivins, comScore EVP of European Markets. “The stronger than average growth rates in the U.K. and France portend a healthy Christmas shopping season there. The weakness in the German market is a cause for concern, especially if the strikes continue.”

In the UK, 29 million users logged on in October. That is an increase of 11% versus 2006 traffic numbers. France also showed a year over year increase (18 million users) of 11% over 2006 while Germany remained relatively steady, going from 22.8 million users in 2006 to 22.6 million users in 2007 (-1%).

In the UK Ebay, Amazon and Apple were the leading online retailers. French shoppers logged on to Ebay, Groupe PPR and Otto Gruppe retailing sites the most. Germany sites Ebay, Otto Gruppe and Amazon were the most logged on to retailing sites.