That’s up from 57% a year earlier, French e-commerce association Fevad says. 40% say they bought more online in the recent holiday season than they did in 2012.

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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