We’re taking our Salesforce XChange conference to Europe next week – Copenhagen, to be precise. Our latest Shopping Index, which includes Australia/New Zealand (ANZ) for the first time, uncovers some interesting nuggets of digital shopping activity outside the US.

Nordics

Digital commerce growth in the Nordics, at 33%, far outpaced the global average of 12% in Q1. Mobile traffic and order growth, at 27% and 85% respectively, continued their blistering pace. Nordic shoppers were 20% more likely to utilize site search compared to the rest of the industry, and were more likely than the industry average to visit a retail site from a social media channel, particularly from a mobile device. Nordic shoppers showed very strong engagement with retail sites in Q1 – 24% of visitors took an action such as product search or added an item to a cart –  even if they did not end up making a purchase.

Canada

Canadian sites grew at 24% in Q1, twice as fast as the industry. Canadian shoppers are becoming ever more confident in mobile shopping, with conversions growing by 59%. Canadian retailers are more generous than the industry with a discount rate of 32%, but they are not as likely to offer free shipping; 49% of packages ship for free from Canadian merchants vs. 67% globally. Only 3% of traffic to Canadian sites comes from social media channels. Canadian retailers saw a 6% increase in the number of unique items purchased by shoppers, putting them on puts them on par with the rest of the industry in terms of product assortment growth.

Germany

German retailers saw the slowest growth, 5%, of any region examined in the Shopping Index in Q1, however German sites saw more active shoppers (18%) and buyers (4%) than the industry. German shoppers are in sync with global mobile trends with a 24% growth in traffic in Q1, but unlike global shoppers, Germans are slightly more likely to visit (51%) and order (51%) on an Android device rather than iOS. German retailers offer the smallest discount compared to their European counterparts, at 15%; their strong Average Order Value, 137 euros, reflects this.

France

French retailers are showing the strongest growth (17%) in Q1 compared to their European counterparts. French shoppers are becoming more confident with making their online purchases on a mobile device, evidenced by the 71% order share growth in Q1. Retailers tend to give some of the largest discounts (21%) to their customers, and are even more generous with free shipping, at 69%.

UK

Digital commerce growth slowed in the UK in Q1, to 8% vs. 14% sequentially and 19% in the year-ago quarter. However, UK sites saw a 19% year-over-year increase in visits. Visit growth from mobile devices, at 51%, outpaced all other countries. UK shoppers are holding onto their tablets longer than any other country, with 22% of orders and 14% of traffic coming from tablets, leading all countries in both metrics. (fun fact: UK shoppers who visit via a tablet spend one minute longer on site than the industry average for tablets.) Site search is a critical shopping utility for UK shoppers, with 35% of revenue coming from search, the highest rate globally. UK shoppers follow industry trends when it comes to the share of traffic from social media channels (4%), but they are more likely than other regions to use a mobile device on social (6%).

Australia/New Zealand

The newest region in our Shopping Index, digital commerce in ANZ grew 21% in Q1, well ahead of the global average. ANZ is at the vanguard of mobile commerce, with mobile accounting for all the growth in orders, soaring 51%, while computers were flat and tablets actually contributed 18% fewer orders compared with last year. The gap between orders placed on computers and mobile is narrowest in ANZ, nearly intersecting at 49% vs. 41%. ANZ retailers’ discount rate, at 18% in Q1, is among the lowest in our Shopping Index.