Online shopping in Europe on the upswing

The number of online shoppers in Europe increased to 73 million for the second quarter of 2005. The figure for the corresponding period in 2004 was 61 million. Thus, there has been an increase of 19.7% with the highest growth rate in southern Europe. The number of online shoppers was the highest for the UK and Germany, both had around 22 million online shoppers, the figures for France, Italy, and Spain were 13 million, 6 million, and 2 million, respectively. During the quarter, France and Italy showed an impressive growth of 40% in the number of online shoppers.

According to JupiterResearch, the spending on online display and search advertising is set to grow at a rate of 10% till 2010. The growth will be propelled by the entertainment industry, financial, and automobile sector. Travel and automotive will log growths at an average of 13% and 24%, respectively.

According to the research, even though health and CPG companies may not invest too heavily in online advertising, there will be increased effort on their part to reach out to consumers via this alternative medium. CPG companies will increase their outlay for display ads on the net whereas health companies will focus on search-related ads.