European Electronic Trend Report First Half 2018
Growth trends in electronics
The electronic industry remains to be a very healthy and growing segment in affiliate marketing across Europe. When we compare the first half of 2018 to the first half of 2017 we saw the highest growth in the Italian market with 183%, followed by the UK with 120% and France with 119%. In Italy the electronic segment now counts for almost 24% of the overall affiliate marketing business, while it was only 14% in the first half of 2017!
Mobile Sales in electronics is catching up slowly
Mobile Sales are still low in the electronics segment, but has increased during the first half of 2018 compared to the first half of 2017 from 9% to 12%, while mobile sales across all verticals remain static – but on a significantly higher level (around 20%).
Leader in mobile sales in the electronics segment in the first half of 2018 were the Netherlands and Switzerland with around 25%. In most countries mobile sales in electronics were lower than across all industries. Interesting exception were the Netherlands, where mobile sales were a lot stronger in electronics (25%) compared to the other industries (13%).
AOV increased substantially
The AOV in electronics is a lot higher than in any other industry (227% of the overall AOV across Europe!). While we are seeing a stable AOV across all industries or even a decrease, we saw a substantial increase of plus 24% in the electronic industry. Best performer in AOV growth is, again, Italy with plus 189% which means an increase from 77 € in the first half of 2017 to 224 € in 2018, while the overall AOV has decreased from 57 € in 2017 to 43 € in 2018. We also noted substantial increase in Spain (plus 126%, France plus 45% and Sweden plus 43%).
Consumers shop at the beginning of the week
When looking at sales and conversion rates by weekday we see the highest volumes at the beginning of the week across Europe. We noticed around 50% higher sales volumes on Mondays and Tuesdays compared to Saturdays and Sundays. Conversion rates are also higher on the first two days of the week.
When looking at the seasonality in 2017 we saw strong sales peaks in January and November (Cyber Weekend) across Europe. 2018 so far is showing the same picture.
Top Publisher Models in Electronics
Across Europe coupons and discount codes/deals still remain the number one sales generator in electronics in the first half of 2018, but now very closely followed by Cashback/Loyalty, which has grown substantially compared to 2017. CTR has also improved significantly for Cashback/Loyalty from 3,9% in the first half of 2017 to 7,8% in 2018 so far.
Bloggers are catching up in the electronics segment.
Compared to fashion or other lifestyle segments, bloggers still only own a rather small piece of the cake, but their order value in electronics has grown by 68% in 2018 compared to the first half of 2017. A very interesting observation can be made when looking at their AOV. In the first half of 2017 the AOV for bloggers in electronics was just 14 €, in 2018 it increased to 118 €. So bloggers are becoming a more and more important player in this segment.
