Insee Première · December 2022 · n° 1932

Distance sellers and shops shared retail e-commerce in 2019

In 2019, retail accounted for a quarter of online sales to individuals.

The legal units - companies or sole proprietorships - carrying out these sales were independent in the vast majority of cases, but 8% of them were owned by a group of companies. Companies that belonged to a group covered 79% of the online retail sales.

63% of the legal units trading online were independent and distance sellers or belonged to a group specialised in distance selling. The vast majority of the others (28%) were shops or belonged to a group which favoured in-store sales but used also drive-through or home delivery. These in-store sales enterprises accounted for half of the online retail sales.

Large enterprises accounted for half of online retail sales. The ten largest legal units alone did 40% of it. All of them belonged to a group.