What you need to know

E-commerce is the most dynamic and rapidly growing segment of French retail, but growth in total online sales slowed to 10.9% in 2015, continuing the longer term trend of decelerating growth. As the market matures we expect this trend to continue over the next five years.

Amazon has a strong local competitor in Cdiscount, but seems to be pulling ahead on the back of its loyalty-building initiatives and expansion into other segments. The store-based retailers are very strong: Fnac, Darty and the big grocers rank very highly in terms of sales and visitor numbers.

Grocery is dominated by the Drive click and collect service and this is a well populated segment. However, we have seen some innovations in the area of rapid grocery home delivery services.

Several retailers have seen the benefits of a Marketplace offer, such as that provided by Amazon, and much growth in the market is coming from this. Mobile is expanding rapidly, making mobile-friendly websites an absolute pre-requisite for retailers hoping to succeed.

Areas covered in this report

For the purposes of this report, Mintel has used the following definitions:

Online shopping is any purchase of goods that could be bought in a shop, whether it is from a store-based retailer or one that only trades online (such as Amazon). It is the fact of ordering goods away from the store that is important.

The consumer research looks at the device used (home computer or mobile device) and which retailers are used. It then looks at attitudes to major issues in online retailing at present – personalisation, service and social media.

The report focusses on all online retailing and we profile the leading players, whether they are online-only or store-based.

The report is about online retailing and excludes other forms of home shopping, such as catalogues, television shopping, party plan or other forms of direct selling.

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