TV shopping strong European growth
March 4, 2013
TV shopping channels in Europe have developed into modern multi-channel providers. The active providers in the core European markets of Germany, the UK, Italy and France currently generate an annual turnover of almost €4 billion – with a predicted increase to €5.3 billion by 2017.
These are the results of the study conducted by Goldmedia on behalf of the European Retailing Association – ERA. Furthermore, the study examined various shopping areas such as classic live shopping, auction television, DRTV (Direct Response TV) and travel shopping.
A total of 68 providers in the examined TV shopping markets of Germany, the UK, Italy and France reached a turnover of about €3.8 billion in 2011. Recording 7,000 employees and a turnover of around €1.7 billion (2011), Germany is the largest TV shopping market in Europe. According to the study, the turnover will continue to increase by 6 per cent to €2.4 billion in 2017.
The UK, being the second largest TV shopping market in Europe, offers the greatest supplier variety: 31 providers with about 5,500 employees generated an annual turnover of €1.4 billion in 2011. In this section, more than half of the total turnover was achieved by e-commerce. In contrast to Germany, the TV shopping market in the UK is already highly saturated.
Italy has the highest growth potential in the European TV shopping market. An annual turnover increase by 13.6 per cent from €420 million in 2011 to €905 million in 2017 is expected, particularly through ongoing digitisation. The French market, however, with a turnover of €230 million in 2011 and a growth rate of only about 2 per ,cent per year, is comparatively small and its development is rather static.
TV is still the most important TV shopping medium, the telephone being preferred for product purchases. While in 2011 the share of revenues generated from TV in the four markets examined was 68 per cent in total, this share will be merely 50 per cent in 2017. In contrast to this, the Internet, social networks, smart TV and mobile apps gain further in importance being distribution and communication channels. Due to the rapid spread of smartphones and tablet PCs, the growth rates of e-commerce are rising particularly. While this share was only 26 per cent in 2011, more than one third of the revenue (37 per cent) from the analyzed TV shopping providers will be generated on the Internet by 2017.