Online Grocery Series: France – Where Click-and-Drive Is King

Key Points

• France has one of the world’s leading online grocery markets. E-commerce accounted for 5.3% of total sales of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) in France as of June 2016, according to Kantar Worldpanel. In Europe, only the UK had a larger share, at 6.9%, while countries such as the US and Germany lagged France considerably.
• The early introduction of drive-through collection services underpinned the expansion of online grocery retailing in France. Some French hypermarket retailers introduced these “click-and-drive” services as early as 2004. The model was successful and expanded rapidly. Our research found that, as of July 2016, there were 3,150 drive-through collection points throughout France. Retailers in other countries introduced click-and-drive at a much later stage.
• Click-and-drive pushed up shopping frequency in France. These services encouraged French consumers who buy groceries online to shop more frequently than consumers in other countries, as French shoppers see click-and-drive as a real alternative to in-store shopping. As a result, France has a larger online grocery retailing market, even though the proportion of consumers buying groceries online in France remains relatively low compared with some other markets.