More French consumers are buying their Christmas gifts online, and they’re quite pleased with the results, according to a study by French e-commerce association Fevad.
The report released this week shows 61% of online consumers shopped for gifts on the web during the 2013 holiday season, versus 57% in 2012. And the 2013 web shopping figure rises to 69% among consumers ages 25 to 35. In addition, 72% say they researched online as they prepared to shop for Christmas.
98% of online shoppers say they were satisfied with their web purchases. “That constitutes an encouraging sign for the development of e-commerce in 2014,” Fevad says in its report on the annual survey.
Other highlights of the survey include:
- More consumers are choosing to take delivery somewhere other than at home, 59% during the 2013 holiday season versus 48% a year earlier. That includes 21% who picked up online orders in stores, compared with 13% a year earlier. That, Fevad, says reflects the efforts of many store-based retailers to promote in-store pickup of web orders, or “click and collect,” a term the French have adopted from British retailers.
- 28% of online shoppers say they purchased from web sites outside of France.
- The same percentage, 28%, says they chose express delivery to their home for some online orders this holiday season.
- The gifts bought most online were cultural items such as books and videos (cited by 61% of online shoppers), toys (48%) and apparel (48%, up significantly from 40% in 2012).
The report is based on a survey of 1,011 online French consumers between the ages of 18 and 74 conducted Dec. 26 to Jan. 2 by French market research firm Institut CSA.
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