Europe’s E-commerce Market is rapidly changing under the coronavirus crisis
In our previous article Coronavirus and its impact on E-commerce in Europe – Part 1, we discussed how Europe has seen its coronavirus cases soar within the last month and how E-commerce as a whole has grown across Europe in recent weeks.
Here in Part 2, we will focus on how different types of products have gained popularity in Europe due to the coronavirus.
Products relating to health and pharmaceuticals are on the increase
The annual trend across most European countries is that fashion and clothing are usually the most popular products to buy online. However, as people across Europe have had to start prioritising healthcare products to protect themselves against the coronavirus, there has been a significant shift in which sectors people are buying products from. A large study conducted by MonkeyData into Central and Eastern European E-commerce has demonstrated this.
The results of the study demonstrate how the consumption of products that fall under Health, Building Materials, Chemists and Children’s Goods have changed. The graph below shows how the Year-on-year sales for January-March 2020 compare with the year-on-year sales for the same period in 2019.
Aside from the increase in goods relating to health and pharmaceuticals, there has been a significant growth in sales for building materials. This can be explained through the fact more people in Central and Eastern Europe have been on lockdown and have had to remain indoors – whilst being indoors they have had more time to carry out activities such as home renovation and decoration.
In regards to the increase in the purchasing of children’s goods, this can be attributed to the closure of schools across Europe and the fact that parents have had to keep their children occupied at home.
It is not only in Central and Eastern Europe that there has been a noticeable increase in the purchase of health-related goods – a report into France’s product sales in March has also demonstrated this. The graph below shows how sales increased for each product through “click and drive” applications in France.
As can be determined from the graph, household gloves have become the most popular product to buy online in France as citizens have been looking to protect themselves from the virus. With everyone taking precautions in this perilous time, soap and first aid products are considered to hold the same value as food products – soap sales have increased by 102%, and both ready meals and first aid product sales have risen by 101%.
We hope that this article in our series on Coronavirus and its impact on E-commerce in Europe has been a useful resource on information regarding coronavirus and the most popular products across Europe. Stay tuned for Part 3, where we will detail how new marketplaces have started booming across Europe as a result of the pandemic.
