French cash in on Christmas cyber shopping craze

Yesterday saw the launch in France of this country's version of Cyber Monday - a site based on an American concept.

The French version groups together around 300 online retailers, offering users a week long shopping spree at prices apparently lower than can be found in the high street.

Online shopping is of course not new in France, but this is the first time that so many retailers have come together at one time to provide a pre-Christmas "sale".

Cyber Monday was a concept that started in the US a decade ago.

The principle here in France - traditionally a country with the reputation of being only too ready to look down its Gallic nose at anything initiated Stateside - seems to be if an idea is worth "borrowing" then why not jump in first, move it up the calendar and stretch it out a bit.

In a sense, Monday's launch couldn't have been better timed, as faced with the credit crunch, the French are of course as much on the lookout as anyone for bargains - and that hasn't gone unnoticed by retailers.

Nor has the fact that there's an ever increasing trend towards online shopping, and that there's money to be made, as Alexis de Charentenay the commercial director of Cash Store, the company behind the French equivalent of the US import, said in an interview with the weekly news magazine Nouvel Obervateur.

"The principle in the States is to offer users the chance of thousands of bargains on just one day - the Monday following Thanksgiving," she said.

"It's the start of the holiday online shopping season there and the day where e-commerce reaches its peak," she added.

"Last year it generated a record $800 million."

The figures here in France would certainly seem to suggest that the concept is one likely to succeed.

According to a survey published by the Fédération des Entreprises de Vente à Distance (Fevad) the organisation that represents "distance selling" companies ( by correspondence, over the 'phone, minitel and of course online) there has been a 27 per cent increase in online sales in the third quarter of this year over the same period in 2007.

That trend looks set to be repeated during the run-up to Christmas, with 20 per cent of French saying that they intend to do their Christmas shopping online this year - up from 13 per cent in 2007.

The same survey forecasts sales of €3.7 billion from now until the holidays compared with €3.1 last year.

So there's definitely money to be made and it's easy to see why retailers are turning to the Net and how a specialised site offering apparent bargains for a limited period would be attractive.

There has of course been criticism surrounding both the term and the concept in the US, with claims that retailers were cashing in on the popularity of the Net and that users could in fact find exactly the same products at more or less the same prices in high street shops.

Such a controversy hasn't reached these shores yet, and although it could all be interpreted as a wonderful public relations exercise, as retailers see there's money to be made, it's certainly not without its attraction.

And of course along with the increase in online sales comes the potential for a rise in hacking or identity theft.

One thing though, it sure beats going shoulder to shoulder with the heaving masses, when one click of the mouse from the comfort of your own sitting room could mean you're done.

That seemed to be very much the appeal on Monday as the site became rather victim of its own success when it opened for business. It quickly reached saturation point as more than 150,000 users logged on within the first hours, leaving it inaccessible for others for a chunk of the day.

The sales period will be limited to one week here, ending on November 30.