PIXmania targets EUR1.5b revenues in 2014

PIXmania's turnover is up 15% to 897 million euros, and its net profit is up 40% ... The group intends to diversify even more, engage in online travel and expand its network of stores.

Also, the group's e-commerce outsourcing services, e-merchant, reached EUR35m revenues in the last fiscal year.

Original article in French

Google translation

Study says Social Commerce pays off

Via the excellent Exciting Commerce blog:

"Unfortunately there are still too few scientific studies on networking effects in e-commerce. Understandable though, due to limited opportunities to make direct comparisons.

All the more exciting that a new study has been released (PDF) from France and the US with the title “Deriving Value from Social Commerce Networks”, whose results have been recently published in the Journal of Marketing Research. The study examines what happens when merchants begin to network with each other."

Download the study here.

Read the whole article at Exciting Commerce here.

Venteprivée.com 2009 revenues and 2010 projections

According to Journal du Net, here are the latest figures from online private shopping club leader Vente Privée :

2009 figures:

- revenue: €680m, +33% vs. 2008

- 2009 profit: 6-7%

- 9.7m members, +12.5k per day

- 15% of sales only are made outside of France

- sales action : 2,500 sales in 2009 with 1,200 brands

2010 projections:

- €850m revenue,

- 25% growth,

- 2.5m new members,

- 3,300 sales,

- 250 new hires.

Wow.

Le Web Paris '09 social commerce / e-commerce highlights

Here's my personal selection of e-commerce / social commerce moments from this year's LeWeb conference worth checking out, pulled-up straight from the Ustream feed of the event!

1. From the Main Stage: Always insightful business, company culture and customer service anecdotes and advice from Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos

2. From the Start up Competition:

- Storific, a set of tools enabling online retailers and their employees to manage their customer communications and promotions on twitter and Facebook in one centralized/shared dashboard (jump to 22:41 for their demo)

- Shutl, a cool service from the UK, turning competing courrier and express delivery providers into a real-time web service for online retailers, enabling online shoppers of retailers using the service to have their on-line purchases delivered within 90 minutes of checking out or selecting a 1 hour delivery window at a time of their convenience – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! (jump to 33:42 for their demo)

- Not e-commerce but still I had to plug them, they're awesome: Tigerlily, a CMS-like Facebook app to manage your Facebook Pages, so cool (jump to 28:53 for their demo)

3. Here's a way too short roundtable, with low-interest questions and answers, on "How has the real-time web changed your e-commerce business?", with Zappos (USA), Vente Privée (FR), Otto (DE). Too bad, the topic was well worth exploring fo real.

4. And here's a little bonus, Gary V's intervention, about "crushing it" and giving a crap about your customers, before the conference's closing remarks. Always hard-hitting and hilarious. Enjoy!

"Faceshopping": Carrefour launches exclusive live shopping deal application on Facebook

Here's a little social commerce app we designed and launched at Publicis K4 for Carrefour, the #2 retailer in the world.

It's called "Faceshopping" and it offers daily shopping deals for Facebook members only.

Launched on September 22nd, it is the first application of its kind.

Reviews are starting to show up accross the Web...

Go ahead and try it for yourself...
All of your comments and ideas are welcome, so we can make it better over time.

(A special shout-out to the fine folks at KRDS for the great work!)

State of e-commerce fraud in France

A white paper by FIA-NET

E-commerce can help get over the economic downturn in France

According to a July 09 study by Eurobrief, e-commerce will save the economy in France: it is still growing, it favors exportations and the creation of jobs.

Hereunder a few interesting figures from the study.

In 2008:

- E-commerce sales in France grew 25% vs. 0.2% for retail stores sales.

- Average order size was 92 euros (but 87 euros in Q4 2008).

- 69% of online users are shoppers: about 22 million people.
That's 4 times more than in 2002.

- 186m online card transactions vs. 132m in 2007

- An e-commerce website is born every 45 minutes: 48,500 total.
That's 5 times more than in 2004.

- 20% of sales are exported outside of France vs. 9,2% for retail stores.

- E-commerce represents 80,000 jobs in France (25,000 direct and 55,000 indirect).
A 15% growth year over year.

Latest e-commerce launches by Digitas

Time for shameless self-promotion... Here's a list of the latest e-commerce websites that went live in the last weeks, made with love (and sweat) by Digitas:

www.thekooples.com - The newest high-end Fashion brand
www.vin-malin.fr - Wine retail pure play
www.cultura.com - Major retail stores chain in France for Music, Video, Books and creative DIY
www.wesco-group.com - European leader in childcare equipment for professionals

Recession special: state of online retailing - US & France

We're starting to get alarming messages from the US and Europe regarding online retail's growth in these tough economic times.

"State of the Union"
On the one hand, according to ComScore, 'Online sales growth barely moves the needle in October in the US': the economic slowdown is starting to seriously affect the online retailing industry.

The latest: Online retail sales in October grew a scant 1% over sales in October 2007. ComScore says it is the lowest monthly growth since it began tracking e-commerce in 2001 and October was the sixth consecutive month of lower growth than the month before.

The decline in growth rate was precipitous, from a height of 28% in August 2007 to 1% only 14 months later. (InternetRetailer.com - Daily News for Tuesday, November 18, 2008)

At least, it's not as bad as offline retail over there: The U.S. Commerce Department reported that retail sales, which include autos, gasoline stations and restaurants, decreased 3.3% in October from October last year.

Hereunder a table comparing sales and year-on-year growth for offline retail and e-commerce in the US:


Source: US Census Bureau


"News from the Old Continent"

On the other hand, e-commerce growth is also slowing down in France, albeit on a smaller scale: according to Fevad, the French e-commerce and distance-selling federation, year-on-year e-commerce growth for Q3 slowed down to 27% instead of 30% in Q1.

Read the full analysis here at Journal Du Net (in French, sorry...).






But French analysts still foresee this Christmas to be the biggest for e-commerce ever in France. We're even having our first Cybermonday over here on November 24th (10 years in the making!).

Let's wait & see...

Publicis Groupe acquires Performics

Another digital grab for Maurice: Google has announced that it will sell its Performics search marketing business (acquired with DoubleClick earlier this year) to Paris-based Publicis Groupe. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2008. Performics will join the ViVaki network.

Check out the official Google/Publicis Groupe press release here.

Digitas France 2008 Showreel

Digitas France 2008 Showreel from Michael S. Levy on Vimeo.

Breaking: iPhone to launch in Europe in Autumn '07

Breaking: the Apple iPhone European launch was confirmed this morning.

Apple will enter only 3 test markets, again with an exclusive deal strategy:
- the UK: seems to be 0²
- Germany: to be announced
- France: Orange is confirmed

To say the least, this is terrible news for Vodafone, who hoped to get the exclusive distribution and service for Europe.

Mobile services companies in Europe are already bracing themselves to offer loads of apps and services as soon as the baby hits the market.

More to come later today...