How did the French e-commerce industry perform during the Covid-19 epidemic?
Yesterday, French Prime Minister Edouard Phillipe officially announced that France will officially enter the second phase of a gradual lifting of France’s coronavirus lockdown starting June 2. What’s the impact on the French e-commerce during the epidemic, and what opportunities will be ushered in after the unblocking?
The French e-commerce consortium (La Fédération du e-commerce et de la vente en distance, Fevad) announced in a recent report that the e-commerce industry’s first quarter revenue grew by just 1.8% year-on-year to €25.3 billion euros, compared to a figure of 11.9% for the first quarter of 2019. This is the lowest growth the alliance has witnessed since its inception, with industry-wide revenue growth of 8% from January to February 2020, but a 10.1% drop in revenue in March due to the COVID-19. Beginning March 31, the curve began to return to growth again. By the end of April, the sales of different products in the whole industry showed the trend of two levels of differentiation, household goods, beauty care products, sports, gardening products maintained strong momentum, but furniture products sales plummeted. Online sales of travel products fell 60% in March and overall sales in the sector fell 19% in the first quarter. Food and office products have become the biggest winners of product sales under the epidemic.
In the first week after the official announcement of the unsealing on May 11, the e-commerce industry revenue grew by 66% compared to 2019. A research report by Nielson shows that this surge is not a short-term temporary trend, the e-commerce industry erupted with great energy in this epidemic and played an important role in resisting the impact of the crisis, especially for small, medium and micro enterprises, which quickly found new sales paths in the face of store closures, while the crisis also quickly cultivated the online consumption habits of French consumers.
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