The French are optimistic about ecommerce

The Fédération du E-commerce et de la Vente à Distance (FEVAD) reported that online sales in 2008 had rose almost 30%, and reached €20.1 billion ($29.5 billion). This explains the optimistic mood of the most online retailers in France during the global financial crisis. 

Another research conducted by the digital industry Website Le Journal du Net (JDN) among 151 French e-commerce firms showed that 73% of them made profits in 2008, and even in the first weeks of 2009 69% of them believed 2009 would also be profitable. Although, 55% of them stated they had reduced their growth projections for 2009, only 12% of them increased their growth projections for the year. 21% of the respondents expected their firms to grow by less than 5%, while almost 40% of them expected a growth of more than 20%, and almost 20% had positive expectations of over 50% of growth. 

While consumer spending is generally expected to decrease during the economic recession FEVAD showed the number of consumers buying online increased by 2.5 million in 2008 and exceeded 22 million. 

At the same time, JDN poll shows online companies were willing to invest more money this year than in the 2008 in order to increase their sales: 62% of respondents were willing to spend more on marketing and communication, 59% on search engine optimization, and 57% on customer relationship management and loyalty programs. Another 43% of the merchants had plans on improving the product images on their site. 

Talking about the future expectations relating to the e-commerce in France 80% said they believed online commerce was better protected than offline retail, and 13% argued this opinion. 61% of the merchants said multichannel retailers were more vulnerable to the crisis than pure-play Web stores. 76% of the respondents found themselves to be well-prepared for the economic downturn, while 81% believed they would even perform better than their in French online market.