Darjeelink - Alexis Perrier

UK beats France in Internet Consumer spending by 4 to 1

When one compares the audacity, creativity and boldness of web agencies, UK mainstream business oriented, creative teams come out far ahead of French ones. Check out Dare Digital or Twenty Six in the UK and Digitas France to see the difference.

When it comes to adoption of new methodologies, trends, technologies, the UK also comes far ahead of France. Just check out the number of venues, conferences, barcamps happening in the UK and compare with the same numbers in France.

You can also compare web related job competencies, for instance, the number of people with Agile or Scrum experience in their LinkedIn Profile and compare the UK and France. In France Agile or Scrum is barely visible while on UKs profiles, it has become a standard.

Same thing with job ads on Monster.co.uk and Monster.fr . Don’t bother trying to find a company actually using Agile or Scrum methods in France. There are basically no job ads.

The implication of this attitude gap in embracing new trends on the internet has direct implication for companies :
UK consumers spend an average of $2,241 per person while French Internet Consumers spend only $860. For a total of 55,6 billion Euros spent in the UK and only with according to eMarketer, “Putting the ‘E’ in European Retail Sales.” July 30, 2007.

That’s a ratio of 1:4 !