French consumers are spending more money shopping online, driven primarily by the sheer number of retail merchants that finally took to the web this year.

Fevad and Mediametrie, two French audience monitoring companies, noted that more than 100,000 France-based retailers were now online. As a result, the number of ecommerce shoppers in the country hit 31 million, with sales hitting 11 billion euros (US $14.25 billion) during the first three months of 2012, up 24 percent from the same time frame last year.

"The frequency of online shopping continues to develop," says Bertrand Krug, director of Mediametrie NetRatings department of online efficiency measures, as quoted by Internet retailers. "Forty-seven percent of internet users have purchased online in the past month alone, compared to 43 percent a year ago."

Ecommerce continues to grow in the United States as well, with separate data from comScore noting a remarkable 17 percent year-over-year increase in online sales during the first quarter of 2012. If merchants aren't selling their products and services online, now is the time to consider integrating ecommerce into store operations.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Monday, May 21st, 2012 at 11:58 am .