A Few Figures From the English Market to Illustrate the Future of E-Commerce

I've been in London the last few days in order to get a better understanding of the English market, where we've now been present for a little over a month (See the Oxatis press release).

I wanted to share a few figures that seemed pretty relevant for Oxatis e-merchants:  Analyzing them at a time when a lot of folks think that there are too many people on the net, that profit margins are falling, and that buyers are drowning in data and you can understand why I'm so excited to pass this information on!


IMRG “The voice of e-retail” conducts a survey every quarter on the top 10 subjects concerning English buyers from 2006 to 2009.


These are the top three concerns and their perceived level of satisfaction:

1.    Product range: Up 81.7% with level of satisfaction down 2.7%. Despite the explosion of products offered, people are still looking for products and not finding them.

2.    Price competitivity: Up 75.7% with level of satisfaction down 3.9%. Customers don't feel that online prices are more attractive than offline prices.

3.    Product information: Up 74.6% with level of satisfaction down 0.6%. Buyers want more content and explanations about the products.

I see this as a great opportunity for any SOHO or SMB that offers these hard-to-find products and describes them thoroughly and with a passion!

Other incredible figures:

• This year, e-commerce accounted for 20% of retail sales in the UK and will reach 50% in 2020.

• Even more significant: Internet influenced sales will rise from 40% today to 90% in 2020.

Note: By "e-commerce" we're referring to all sales (consumer goods, trips, theatre tickets, services…). You need to divide by 2 or 3 to get the % of consumer goods, which is about 7% of retail sales in England and will reach 15-20% in 2020.

This confirms the figures given to me by many Oxatis e-merchants who make a lot of offline sales thanks to their e-commerce site.

Have a great day,

Marc