Magazine: Online retail is booming all over the world

According to the Nielsen report ‘Future Opportunities in FMCG E-commerce’, global online retail sales are growing four times faster than offline retail sales, and they will expand by 18.4 percent a year in the near future. The report surveys the markets of 34 countries and it has found that by 2022 the combined annual value of the e-FMCG sales in these countries will be USD 400 billion. Currently 26 percent of Hungarian consumers make online purchases and another 8 percent plan to do so.

Online has the biggest share in FMCG sales, 6.3 percent, in the United Kingdom; the UK is followed by France at 6.1 percent. Nielsen has identified four factors that can be the main driving forces of FMCG e-commerce in the future: 1. The basis of growth: market size, number of consumers’ bank accounts, internet penetration, number of smartphones owned by consumers; 2. Macroeconomic growth stimulators: how simple it is to start a business, population density, reliable postal service; 3. Factors that motivate for increasing wealth: trust, attitude towards saving; 4. Supply growth factors: development level of market players in FMCG e-commerce.

Mathias Bernhardt, global client director of Nielsen told: large companies are investing a lot of money in the development of e-commerce because the conditions are given for the growth of FMCG e-commerce in Europe. High-level online retail services can save time for consumers, so this is why it is important for FMCG market players to invest in their omnichannel strategy all over Europe.