Forrester Research Web-Influenced Retail Sales Forecast, 2015 To 2020 (EU-7)

The forecast emphasizes the importance of multichannel retailing as 45% of offline sales will be influenced by the Web in 2020. From 2015 to 2020, web-influenced sales will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.1%. A purchase decision can be influenced by the Web based on the different online information sources used prior to purchase such as search engines, retailer-specific websites, and cost comparison websites, as well as the specific product attributes, like product price, that are best researched online. This forecast calculates web-influenced sales across 20 retail categories. Although 91% of retail sales in EU-7 were offline in 2014, online presence is critical to retailer success with web-influenced sales more than three times larger than online sales.