Eastern Europe grows faster than Western Europe

Annual growth of ecommerce sales in Eastern Europe outpaced that of Western Europe by 13 percentage points in 2012. For this current year a double digit growth above 20% is expected, although this growth is likely to decrease by 2017. But although Eastern Europe grows faster than Western Europe, the latter is still the one accounting for most of ecommerce sales in the whole of Europe.

Ecommerce sales in Eastern Europe are expected to reach over 50 billion euros by 2016, while total ecommerce sales for Europe are expected to reach about 300 billion euros. This is indicated by a report from research company yStats.com, called “Eastern Europe B2C E-Commerce Report 2013”. In this report it states that B2C ecommerce in Russia grew by over a quarter last year and that further expansion is expected. Household goods, cosmetics and auto parts are some of the product categories in Russia that have shown growth of over 50%. Russia’s biggest online retailer Ozon increased its sales by more than 50%, so we could say things go pretty wel over there. Russia is not at all one of Europe’s biggest ecommerce countries, but it sure has potential! That’s something international players like Asos and Amazon also acknowledge, as they opened local websites and local offices this year.

When we look at other Eastern European countries, we see that in the Czech Republic, B2C ecommerce sales are expected to reach ‘several billions of euros’ this year, while already over 40% of its internet users shop online. In Slovenia there is even 50% of the internet users shopping online. In other Eastern European countries like Hungary, Poland and Turkey, ecommerce has increased its share on the total retail market. In the latter, ecommerce sales reached above 10 million euros last year, after a two digit percentage growth rate.

Check also our article about ecommerce sales in Western Europe!