French and Spanish Ecommerce Figures

Last week I read very impressive statistics about French online retail revenue in 2010 in Journal de Net. The main conclusion: French ecommerce is still in its infancy, with 74% of the online stores booking less than 100,000 euros a year in revenue. Big ecommerce numbers in France and in Europe are for private outlet businesess, while online retailers are suffering low revenue, margins and profits. The average yearly revenue for a French ecommerce store is 900,000 euros.

For Spain you can take the French statistics and divide them by three. That is, an average yearly revenue of 300,000 euros. There still are many opportunities in the European ecommerce market, but the other thought I had when I read the statistics from Journal du Net is that after 15 years of ecommerce in Europe, revenues are low, maybe too low for a strategic online business. Ecommerce business is hard and it requires a certain volume of demand to get good profit margins. Without this demand side of the equation, it is very difficult to grow an online store. There is a long way to go in the European ecommerce market.