UK shoppers are Europe's biggest internet spenders

July 19th, 2006, 04:35 PM

UK shoppers Europe's biggest internet spenders

UK shoppers spend more online than any other European country


Europe's 3 biggest online spenders last year

Britain - £6.7 billion

Germany - £6.6 billion.

France - £4.4 billion.




UK shoppers spend more on goods over the Internet than anywhere else in Europe, new research has revealed.

The e-retail boom has pushed the UK ahead of Germany in terms of annual online spending.

The amount spent last year hit 9.79bn Euros (£6.74 billion) compared with a Europe-wide total of 40.2 billion euros (£27.7 billion).

The sector has enjoyed a "phenomenal'' growth of 51 per cent since 2004, according to market analysts Mintel.

But online spending still accounts for only 2 per cent of total European retail sales.

The continent's e-retail market is set to grow by a further 186 per cent between 2005 and 2010, Mintel's E-Commerce in the UK report predicts.

Senior retail analyst Neil Mason said: "Mintel is confident that online sales of goods will grow strongly over the next few years as this channel matures.''

High street stores are expected to fight back by making the shopping experience more enjoyable and rewarding.

E-commerce is set to increase its share of total European retail sales from 2 per cent to 5 per cent in the five years to 2010, Mintel predicts.


news.aol.co.uk

July 26th, 2006, 04:33 AM

thats interesting

July 26th, 2006, 04:33 AM

where do they rank in the world?

July 26th, 2006, 09:27 AM

It's sad 60 million folks are are crammed in a sardine can but Brits are stuck with such crappy weather they don't even get out to do their shopping. No wonder there are so many eccentrics on the postage stamp sized island. A bit cuckoo like the the caged animals in a zoo cage.

July 26th, 2006, 09:40 AM

not quite as cuckoo as my dad's cockateil, stuck in his cage most of the day, it sends him positively barking.

Although having travelled outside the uk for a considerable amount of time, I do feel lot of pity for those who never leave the place.

And I think the growth in internet shopping is just about lazyness, besides, Britain does have the highest proportion of obese people in europe.

July 26th, 2006, 12:46 PM

That's interesting when you consider the populations of the three countries:

Britain - 60,441,457
France - 60,656,178
Germany - 82,431,390

Britain has the smallest population of the the three countries compared, yet spends the most money online. Anybody dare to offer contributing factors? I can see that the article that Blackleaf posted does not.

Personally, I would hazard to guess that Britain being an island would have something to do with it. Both France and Germany are landlocked countries. I would tend to think that most online sales are of products that are not available domestically. i.e. eBay, etcetera.

July 27th, 2006, 09:08 AM

Obese. True. As a lad I spent a year at a British school near Norwich . The food was anything cooked to a crisp and then smothered in gravy. Desert was mystery 'stuff' drowned in custard. I didn't gain any weight because I refused to eat most of it. It was the opposite of Oliver Twist and his 'Please, sir. can I have some more'. It was 'do you guys really eat this crap'.

July 27th, 2006, 11:35 AM

See, I could counter that by saying that the French (far better conisuiers of food than any anglo-nation) call custard "Sauce Anglais" and that they actually think it's by far the best food-invention of any English speaking-nation, and that you were probably either eating Apple/blackberry pie/ Treacle Tart or "spotted dick" (a sponge made with raisens and covered with custard).

Now, I'm really not offended by what you say, because frankly, your right, Britain has never been great at cooking, and they do just chuck stuff in and fry it...BUT, with my months spent in the US, I'd have to say the quality was about the same, I'll never again eat a chicken now that I've eaten "fried Gizzards" in the south, Grits...what the HELL is that....'SMORES....now you might like them, but nah....and US chocolate is quite possibly the worst stuff on the planet.

But basically, it's true there are a LOT of Obese people in the UK who shop at home online as opposed to getting out of the house, although, there usually isn't much to see outdoors, so why go.

July 27th, 2006, 04:30 PM

Remember that techno invention fad a couple years back? 'The Segway' (sp.) was some type of standing wheeled motorized machine ...no need to walk anymore....wow...just what modern society needs.

July 27th, 2006, 04:42 PM

Didn't G W Bush fall off one of those?....I thought even a monkey could drive one

July 27th, 2006, 10:38 PM

Spotted dick? In Canada, we just call it herpes.

July 30th, 2006, 06:29 AM

That depends on what sources you consult. Some sources show Britain's population being higher than France's.

And whichever of the two has the highest population, it's only by a margin of just 2-3 hundred thousand. It's tiny.

And France and Germany aren't landlocked countries. They both have coastlines.


World Top 10 - Countries With Most Internet Users

Country Internet Users

USA 168,600,000
Japan 56,000,000
China 45,800,000
Germany 41,800,000
Britain 30,400,000
Italy 25,300,000
France 23,000,000
Brazil 19,700,000
Spain 17,000,000
Canada 16,840,000

Britain has more internet users, per capita, than Germany. Germany has over 20 million more people, but only 12 million more internet users.


Internet penetration (% of population)

Britain - 62.9
Germany - 59.0
France - 43.0

July 30th, 2006, 06:32 AM

The temperature here has been pushing 100 degrees for the last fortnight.

And someone from Canada should have no right to condemn Britain's weather. Our winters are like summer compared to your winters.

July 30th, 2006, 12:30 PM

have you actually been to the main cities in Canada Blackleaf?...Toronto's weather most of the time is VERY similar to the UK's, in fact the Axis and level of Toronto is pretty much the same as the south of france, and the majority of the population dont live a LOT higher to the north than that.

September 2nd, 2006, 05:42 AM

How click-happy Britain fell in love with online shopping

Weather, broadband and credit cards have created a phenomenon

Richard Wray and Joel Raku
Saturday September 2, 2006
The Guardian


Britain is, by a very long distance, the biggets internet shopping nation in Europe.

Average amount spent on internet shopping, 2005

Britain - £875
Denmark - £734
Germany - £405
France - £254

It seems like Continental European countries are still more interested in old-fashioned things, like being big agricultural nations (that's why they have the CAP) rather than embracing modern technology)






Rather than battle their way through the hordes on the high street at the weekend, British shoppers are embracing the internet, spending more than their European counterparts booking holidays, hunting out book and DVD bargains and having groceries delivered to their door.

Overall retail sales growth in Britain shows that consumers have been moving from scrimping and saving in order to pay off some of their debts, as a rise in interest rates looms, to splurging out on all sorts of goods and services. In August, retail sales grew at their fastest for 20 months according to the CBI. But online sales are increasing at an even faster rate.

The Interactive Media in Retail Group reckons online spending is growing 10 times faster than spending in shops. And it's not just "pure" internet players such as Amazon, Play.com and Cheapflights.co.uk that are seeing the benefit, the major bricks-and-mortar players have become aware of the shift in spending habits.

Long hours

This week, Tesco launched an all-out attack on rivals such as Amazon and Argos with the launch of Tesco Direct, a home shopping service that offers more than 8,000 items from furniture and electrical products to bicycles and golf clubs.



Part of the rapid growth in sales over the web in Britain is due to purely statistical reasons: online sales are a relatively small percentage of total sales. The British Retail Consortium estimates that less than 4% of all UK retail sales, which last year reached £249bn, are done online.

But British shoppers do seem to be making more use of the internet than consumers on the continent. Last year UK buyers spent an average of £875 on the web. That compares with £734 for second-placed Denmark, £405 for sixth-placed Germany and £254 by the average French shopper, according to the European Interactive Advertising Agency.

It is not just the quantity of things that British shoppers buy using their computer that make them Europe's most prolific consumers, it is the fact that they buy big-ticket items as well as their weekly groceries. While Britons spent an average of £875 last year, they spent that on an average of 12 items. Germans, in contrast, spent their £405 on 10 smaller cost items.

So why have Britons adopted the online shopping habit faster than people across the Channel? Theories range from meteorological factors: the British weather means shoppers prefer to stay indoors whenever they can, which may also explain why Denmark and Norway are heavy web shoppers, to cultural differences in that French and Italian consumers prefer to use the fresh fruit and vegetable markets on their doorsteps and do not need to go far to find a bakery. Another suggestion is that British consumers work longer hours than their lazy European counterparts and often use the web to save time.

But there are some basic differences in infrastructure that make Britain ripe for an explosion in online shopping, the most obvious of which is the take-up of high-speed internet connections. Broadband penetration in the UK is higher than in other parts of Europe and download speeds are faster, with many people on 8MB per second connections. That has allowed retailers to create ever more complex websites, showing items from different angles or in varying colours.

Alison Fennah, executive director of the European Interactive Advertising Agency, says: "Broadband has got a lot to do with it. Where there is high penetration of broadband, take up of services such as online shopping tends to happen more quickly."

Britain also has a certain first mover advantage, as many online retailers from the US, such as Amazon, used the UK as a springboard into Europe. As a result, broadband penetration increases and e-retailers become more advanced in the rest of Europe. Other countries are expected to catch up with Britain.

There is also the fact that British consumers are willing to brandish their plastic, having run up a grand total of £54.7bn on their flexible friends, and using a credit card is often central to an online transaction. Germans, in contrast, are much more wary of personal debt.

"We are certainly very willing in the UK to use our credit cards," says Ms Fennah. "We've got a higher level of credit card debt than the rest of Europe."

Some within the retail industry have suggested that the flight from the high street to the internet could speed up the collapse of English town centres, a process already well under way thanks to the proliferation of huge, out-of-town shopping centres.

Better prices

Brian McBride, managing director of Amazon.co.uk, believes the internet and the high street can live together, but only if traditional retailers change the way they operate. "I think the high street will always exist, but the online world is redefining what the high street is about. If you are simply a music or book store trying to compete only on price you are going to struggle; you have to offer some differentiated service," he says.

"It's not an either-or situation; you will see people move between the two. For instance, people often start by doing their research online and then buying on the high street, or see a deal on the high street and then check for better prices online."

guardian.co.uk

September 11th, 2006, 09:37 AM

It's been said elsewhere, and is not entirely unknown, that Britain is considerably smaller in relation to its population than the likes of France, Germany, Canada, America e.t.c.
Now imagine what it's like to go shopping in a town or city on a Saturday morning... I envy those canned sardines for the amount of space they have!
Not only is it absolutely chaotic trying to navigate your way around the hoards of people but it is also exceedingly time consuming. I'd much rather spend a few minutes making any necessary purchases on the 'net, then spend the rest of the day doing enjoyable things.