The Swiss market offers excellent opportunities for retailers overseas, with 64% of online purchases from cross-borders and the average amount spent online continuing to increase.

Switzerland continues to demonstrate growth in ecommerce, economically buoyed by a strong service sector and high-quality manufacturing, with a robust infrastructure for future growth in ecommerce.

B2C ecommerce turnover grew to CHF 6.25 billion, pushed along by a growth rate of 8.7%, and is set to rise in the coming year. The amount e-shoppers are willing to spend stands at CHF 628 in 2017, illustrating substantial market potential for retailers.

Clothing represents the largest share of e-retail purchases in Switzerland (57%) by far. When looking at the share of the population shopping online, just below 70% did so in the three months prior to responding. 25-34 year olds tend to shop online the most across almost all product categories. Brand engagement is also high with over a third of shoppers and social network users following brands online. When looking at the actual influence of social media on consumers, YouTube and Facebook were by far the most influential.

Swiss consumers make 64% of their online purchases from abroad, looking to German webshops 51% of the time, with French, American and Chinese webshops following behind. The largest issues faced by Swiss consumers are delivery speed, tech failure and/or complaints about an online order. However, the rates of annoyance are relatively low, with most below 5%.

When looking at online payments, there is a heavy preference for invoices (44%) with Paypal and standard credit card payments following close behind. Switzerland has a consumer base that is very much concerned with their privacy whilst online. Trust and cybersecurity should therefore be a core concern for ecommerce strategies in the Swiss market, particularly as the rest of the EU is tightening data protection laws with measures such as GDPR.

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