The Growth of E-commerce in France Over the Last 10 Years

The CIQRA team29 September 2026 7 min read

France's e-commerce market reached €196.4 billion in 2025, according to FEVAD, the French e-commerce and distance-selling federation, up 7% on the year. That is roughly 2.7 times the €72 billion French shoppers spent online in 2016. Growth has cooled from the double-digit pace of the late 2010s, but the market is still expanding: FEVAD reported 6.6% growth for the first half of 2026 and expects annual online sales to pass €200 billion in 2026.

Below is the ten-year arc, year by year, followed by what drove it and what it means for merchants selling into France today.

France e-commerce market size, 2016 to 2025

FEVAD publishes an annual review of online sales of products and services in France each February. The table shows the headline figures from each year's review.

YearOnline sales (products + services)Growth on prior yearOnline transactionsAverage basket
2016€72.0 billion+14.6%over 1 billionn/a
2017€81.7 billion+14%1.2 billion€65.50
2018€92.6 billion+13.4%over 1.5 billionabout €60
2019€103.4 billion+11.6%over 1.7 billionjust under €60
2020€112 billion+8.5%1.8 billion€61
2021€129.1 billion+15.1%2.1 billion€60
2022€146.9 billion+13.8%2.3 billion€65
2023€159.9 billion+10.5%2.35 billionproducts €59, services €75
2024€175.3 billion+9.6%2.6 billion€68
2025€196.4 billion+7%3.2 billion€62

A note on reading the table: each row is the figure as first published. FEVAD revises earlier years as its panel of sites changes (the 2023 review, for example, restated 2022 at €144.7 billion), so the growth column, which FEVAD calculates on a like-for-like basis, is a more reliable guide than the difference between two rows.

Three phases of growth

2016 to 2019: steady double digits and the €100 billion milestone

In 2016 French online shoppers passed one billion transactions in a year, and online sales grew 14.6% to €72 billion. The next three years kept a similar rhythm: €81.7 billion in 2017, €92.6 billion in 2018 and €103.4 billion in 2019, when the market crossed €100 billion. Growth came mainly from people buying more often rather than spending more per order. The average basket drifted down from €65.50 in 2017 to just under €60 in 2019, which FEVAD described as the lowest level it had recorded, while transactions rose 15.7% in 2019 alone.

Mobile became a real channel in this period. By 2019, mobile sales accounted for 39% of revenue at the sites FEVAD tracks, and for the first time more visitors reached the fifteen largest sites on a phone than on a computer.

2020 and 2021: the pandemic reshapes the mix

Headline growth actually slowed in 2020, to 8.5%, because the collapse in travel (down 47% on 2019) pulled services down 10%. Underneath, product sales jumped by about 32%. The online channels of physical retailers grew 53% over the year, with peaks of 100% during the two lockdowns, and marketplace sales rose 27%. On FEVAD's measure, e-commerce's share of retail trade rose from 9.8% in 2019 to 13.4% in 2020 and 14.1% in 2021.

In 2021 the market grew 15.1% to €129.1 billion, and online product sales were 42% above their 2019 level. Travel, however, was still 16% below where it had been before the pandemic.

2022 to 2025: services lead, then volumes return

As travel reopened, the balance flipped. In 2022 services grew 36% while online product sales fell 7%. In 2023 total sales rose 10.5% to €159.9 billion, but product sales slipped again (down 1.8%), and FEVAD attributed much of the growth to inflation rather than extra activity.

2024 marked a genuine return of volume: transactions grew 10%, product sales recovered 6% to €66.9 billion and services grew 12% to €108.4 billion. In 2025, services reached €120.3 billion (up 9%) and products €76.1 billion (up 4%), with transactions up 10% to 3.2 billion. The average basket fell 3% to €62. French shoppers are buying online more often, in smaller amounts.

Who buys online in France

  • 42.2 million online shoppers in 2025, about 80% of French people aged 16 to 74 (FEVAD, 2026 key figures). In 2017 FEVAD counted just over 37 million.
  • 75 purchases a year and €4,657 spent per online shopper on average in 2025.
  • Above the EU average: Eurostat's 2025 survey found that 80.2% of people in France aged 16 to 74 had bought something online in the previous 12 months, against 73.6% across the EU. Among internet users, the figures were 83.8% in France and 77.8% in the EU.
  • 158,000 active merchant sites in 2025, up 7%, supporting 234,000 jobs.

The enablers behind the growth

People who search for France's growth-stage e-commerce enablers usually mean the infrastructure that lets a young online business scale. The FEVAD data points to four.

Marketplaces

Marketplaces already carried about 30% of volume at tracked sites in 2018, and their sales grew 27% in 2020. FEVAD credited them with keeping many small and mid-sized businesses trading while shops were closed.

Omnichannel retail

The 53% jump in store retailers' online sales in 2020 showed that established chains, not only online pure players, drive the market. Selling across a website, stores and marketplaces is now the norm for larger French retailers.

Out-of-home delivery

Almost half of e-commerce shipments in France in 2025 were delivered somewhere other than the buyer's home, such as pick-up points and parcel lockers, according to FEVAD's 2026 key figures. For merchants entering France, offering these options matters.

Mobile and resale

Mobile has been the main growth channel since the late 2010s. Resale is the newer shift: in 2024, 51% of French online shoppers bought second-hand goods online and 43% resold items.

What to expect in 2026

FEVAD's figures for the first half of 2026 show growth of 6.6%, close to 2025's pace. Second-quarter online sales reached €52.2 billion (up 8.5%), helped by a strong June, while the average basket slipped to €59.7. In 2025, online sales accounted for 12% of French retail product sales. Growth now comes from volume rather than prices, which favors merchants who make repeat purchases easy.

For wider context, FEVAD put the European e-commerce market at €661 billion in 2024, up 9%.

Selling to French shoppers with CIQRA

If you plan to sell into France from another country, CIQRA is an e-commerce and website platform hosted in the EU, with built-in cookie consent and consent records. Stores can publish in several languages, it generates per-language XML sitemaps and hreflang tags automatically, and stores can take payments through providers including Stripe and PayPal, as well as bank transfer.

Frequently asked questions

How big is the France e-commerce market?

€196.4 billion in 2025 for online sales of products and services combined, according to FEVAD: €76.1 billion from products and €120.3 billion from services.

How fast is French e-commerce growing?

By 7% in 2025 and 6.6% in the first half of 2026. That is slower than the 11% to 15% annual growth of 2016 to 2019 and of 2021 to 2022, but still steady expansion on a much larger base.

How many people shop online in France?

42.2 million people in 2025, about 80% of those aged 16 to 74. Eurostat's 2025 survey also puts France above the EU average for online buying.

Did the pandemic permanently change French e-commerce?

It pushed online product sales up about 32% in 2020, and they have stayed well above their 2019 level since. The share of retail sold online peaked at 14.1% in 2021 on FEVAD's measure; online sales were 12% of retail product sales in 2025.

Sources

Share LinkedIn X Facebook Email

Written by
The CIQRA team

Related articles