Which e-commerce companies in France are effective in converting its users into buyers?

France is one of the top 5 ecommerce markets in the world, and is estimated to be worth more than 75 billion euros. Unlike other markets, traditional retailers have a strong online presence and compete equally against the pure players. Amazon, Cdiscount, Fnac, Ebay, Vente-Privee, PriceMinister, Leroy Merlin, La Redoute, Darty and Rue du commerce are the top 10 most visited ecommerce websites in France.

There are more than 47 million internet users in France. 76% of these internet users made an online purchase last year. Desktop with over 60% traffic seems to be the preferred channel for the users, and contributes over 70% of the revenues. However, mobile still remains the fastest growing channel with a double digit growth YoY, and now accounts for 40% of total traffic. It is clear that mobile is one of the key focus areas for ecommerce companies in France.

Competitive landscape

Ikea and H&M are the leaders in the market. Top performing companies have a higher percentage of organic traffic, and use paid traffic as a lever of growth. They are very effective at activating visitors to signup and engaging users. This allows them to use emails to re-engage registered users and bring them back to the website, the key to increasing increasing LTV and the marketing ROI in the long run.

Marketplaces are the best performers

Marketplaces such as Amazon, Ebay and Cdiscount are among the top performers in France. These marketplaces outperform other companies in activation, but lag behind the leaders in engagement. Enhancing product discovery is a key challenge for these marketplaces that have a large catalog with thousands of products in each category. This problem is further amplified on mobile website when compared to desktop website.

Brands have phenomenal engagement

Brands such as Longchamp, Louis Vuitton have phenomenal engagement, but lag behind most companies in activation. Interestingly, this is by design. Brands have always relied on traditional marketing to create awareness that would drive engagement. While they have adopted digital marketing with their move online, their approach and objectives haven't changed!

Retailers are closing the gap

Retailers such as Fnac, Leroy Merlin, Darty think they can outperform global marketplaces in every aspect, and they have made a good start. If they are to challenge the leaders, they need to make significant enhancements to their marketing efforts.

Here are the top e-commerce companies that are effective at marketing:

Disclaimer: This report is created by Guesswork Research Team based on the publicly available traffic data. We use this data to predict the internal metrics of e-commerce companies using our machine learning algorithm. These are indicative numbers. If you have any questions or feedback on this report, please write to us at research@guesswork.co