Consumers have visibly taken a liking to the advantages of e-commerce and appreciate making their purchases in complete time and geographical independence, says Marianne Bregenzer, head of Nets for the Swiss market.
Spending by Swiss consumers for online purchases, at home and abroad, totaled 32.5 billion francs last year. That’s 13% more than in 2020, payment service provider Nets said in a statement on Thursday.
Several branches managed to increase their online sales significantly or to maintain them at a high level, while a minority recorded a contraction following the normalization of the general situation.
Swiss consumers have visibly taken a liking to the advantages of e-commerce and appreciate making their purchases in complete time and geographical independence, believes Marianne Bregenzer, head of Nets for the Swiss market. “We expect e-commerce to grow even more in the next few years,” she adds.
Hard hit by the pandemic crisis, the travel sector has particularly benefited from the ongoing normalization, with online turnover of 8.9 billion francs, up 61% compared to 2020.
Sales of home and garden items also saw strong growth (+57% to 300 million), as did household appliances (+38% to 600 million) and pharmaceutical products (+38% to 400 million). million). Marianne Bregenzer sees this as a trend resulting from the spring 2020 confinement, which “was accentuated and continued during the second year of the pandemic”.
On the contrary, the return to a certain mobility weighed on online revenue generated by food and alcoholic beverages, which fell by almost a third (-29%) to 2.3 billion francs.
Public interest in clothing items has not waned. Online sales in this sector totaled 3.2 billion francs, and nearly one in two consumers (46%) purchased an item through this channel in the last 28 days.
The main motivation for online purchases is practicality – for 27% of customers – far ahead of flexibility (15%), the assortment or even saving time (12% each). The price component (10%) only comes in fifth place, even though more than one in two consumers acknowledge having purchased on a foreign platform to save money.
The Nets study was carried out in Switzerland with around 1,250 people between January and December 2021.