Swiss e-commerce sales reached CHF15 billion 2024

Nearly CHF 15 billion generated by e-commerce in 2024 Keystone-SDA

Driven by purchases abroad, e-commerce in Switzerland continues to grow, with sales approacheing the CHF15 billion markin 2024.

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These are the findings of data compiled by Swiss Post, the commerce.swiss Association and the market research institute GfK. In 2024, Swiss consumers purchased CHF14.9 billion worth of goods and merchandise online, a figure up 3.5% year-on-year, according to the study published on Thursday.

Growth was driven by an 18% jump in purchases abroad, mainly small packages from Asia. In 2023, a 10% increase had already been recorded in this segment.

“For Temu alone, we estimate 15 million parcels and sales of CHF900 million in 2024”, explains Bernhard Egger, Director of the commerce.swiss Association. Because of the low prices charged, the loss of earnings for the Swiss retail trade is estimated at around CHF2.25 billion.

Despite this, online shopping on “.ch” websites, including giants such as Zalando, continues to account for the lion’s share of sales. They reached CHf12.3 billion, although growth was only 1%. Digitec Galaxus was able to hold its own, with revenues jumping 18% year-on-year.

The consumer electronics sector continues to account for the largest share of e-commerce, with 24% of the market. It is followed by fashion with 16% and homeware with 14%. These three non-food sectors share more than 50% of the Swiss online market. Food, with 1%, rounds out the four main sectors, driven in particular by sales of wine and beverages.

Fashion struggling

Some sectors have been particularly hard hit, such as fashion, which suffered a 7% drop in sales last year, after a similar situation in 2023. Clothing and footwear are the products that are most frequently purchased abroad,” explains Luca Giuriato, multimedia specialist at NIQ/GfK.

The consumer electronics sector has barely managed to stay in the black (+1%), after the solid years during the pandemic.

On the other hand, online sales of food products continued to grow, rising by 6%, although the sector still accounts for a fairly small share of the total (3.1%).

The authors of the report expect retail consolidation to be largely complete by 2025. The improvement in the consumer climate should enable online retailing to grow by between 4% and 7%.

Translated from French with DeepL/mga

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