EMMA HERROD, EDITOR, INTERNET RETAILING
UK retailers will enjoy cross-border sales worth £10bn in 2013, according to the IMRG . That’s up from £7.4bn spent on UK-based sites by international consumers in 2012. The UK online retail market remains, said IMRG, second only to the US market in overall value.
The etail trade association also predicts that crossborder sales across Europe will hit €36bn in 2013, accounting for 10.6% of total online sales in the region. That compares to €26bn in 2012.
“Cross-border is the future of ecommerce and the opportunity is particularly strong for UK retailers due to the advanced state and sophistication of the market here,” said Andrew McClelland , chief operations and policy officer at IMRG.
Meanwhile, Forrester predicts that total European online retail sales will reach €191bn by 2017, up from €112bn in 2012 – reflecting a 11% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years. Martin Gill , Forrester Principal Analyst and author of the European online retail sales forecast comments that:
The rate of growth across Northern European countries will begin to slow. Although far from the saturation point, the UK in particular has passed beyond the boom years and local retailers must invest in optimization and innovation to stay competitive.
Online shopping will continue to grow at high double-digit rates across Southern European countries like Spain and Italy; Spain in particular will see an 18% CAGR from 2012 to 2017. Retailers in this region should focus on improving customer convenience, value, and (most importantly) choice, as they bring their offline catalogues online.
By 2017, more than half of all spending on music and DVDs across Europe will be online, as will more than one-quarter of all spending on books. By 2017, shoppers across Europe will spend almost €10bn online on food and drink, as grocers across Europe emulate the online success already seen in the UK.
