European Online Retail Forecast, 2012 To 2017

By 2017, Europeans will spend more than €191 billion online on retail products, and online retail growth will continue to outpace offline growth. As wallet share gradually shifts toward the Web, online sales will become a critical part of the retail economy of many European countries. While most countries will see double-digit growth, some countries, particularly in Northern Europe, will see web sales growth rates slow as online sales in categories like music and movies approach saturation. eBusiness executives in the latter group of countries will enter a new era of competitive tension. They must become more aggressive in developing strategies to secure growth, identifying new sources of competitive advantage and differentiation as they optimize their businesses to serve increasingly web-savvy shoppers in a very crowded market. In this report, Forrester examines the growth rates and underlying drivers of growth across retail eCommerce in Europe from 2012 to 2017.