Online sales of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) will hit $130bn (£84.1bn) in 2025, a Kantar Worldpanel report suggested this week.
The report put FMCG ecommerce sales growth at 28% in 2014 alone, and suggests that purchases of such goods will increasingly move online. Over the next decade, the report suggests that 30% of category purchases will take place online in South Korea, 15% in China and at least 10% in the UK and France.
The study analysed the buying habits of 100,000 shoppers in ten leading FMCG markets and found huge potential for retailers who sell over the internet. In the UK, for example, the typical family that shops online has young children, lives in the city or the suburbs and is middle or upper class. The average shopper spends £43 per online visit, compared with £10 in a bricks-and-mortar shop. meanwhile, UK online shoppers spend 23% of their FMCG yearly spend with the same trader.
Stéphane Roger, global shopper and retail director at Kantar Worldpanel, said many brands were now futureproofing their businesses for ecommerce, among them Walmart, Coca-Cola, Unilever and Procter & Gamble.
“It seems that for these global leaders, the talk is fast turning in to action,” he said, adding: “Simply put: the market is remarkably unkind to latecomers. Winning among the retailers are those which first invested. Tesco in the UK and France’s E.Leclerc both enjoy an online market share double that of their offline counterparts. For brands, the urgency lies in getting on shopping list. Our data shows that 55% of online shoppers use the same shopping list from one purchase to the next, giving first movers a big advantage.”
