Retail sales in France have taken a body blow during the coronavirus crisis, but digital retail is seeing gains. We expect retail ecommerce sales in France to total $77.27 billion (€69.01 billion) this year, compared with $66.00 billion (€58.94 billion) in 2019.

Recent research has found that the stringent lockdown in France has boosted ecommerce dramatically as consumers make fewer in-store trips.

Every country we analyze in the region saw double-digit growth in ecommerce—those gains ranged from an estimated 11.8% in France to 36.0% in Spain. In fact, Spain was the third-fastest-growing retail ecommerce market worldwide among the 32 countries we track. Across the EU-4 and the UK specifically, the outlook also varied.

Our September 2020 Ecommerce Survey, conducted by Bizrate Insights, revealed that just 2% used voice shopping regularly, while 63% said they’d neither used it nor had any interest, up from 58% in our June 2020 survey.

"The Western European countries that will see the highest growth in Instagram users in 2020 are those that have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic: France, Spain and Italy," said Jasmine Enberg, eMarketer senior analyst at Insider Intelligence.

Global retail ecommerce sales will decelerate to a 16.5% growth rate in 2020. Even as consumers transitioned en masse to ecommerce during the pandemic, the drag caused by multiple recessions internationally has reduced the overall outlook.

Ecommerce sales in France will rise 11.5% in 2019, to €58.84 billion ($69.40 billion), accounting for 9.5% of total retail sales. Sales via mobile devices will post the highest annual growth rate, at 20.6%.