Ecommerce in Europe was worth €534 billion in 2017

Ecommerce in Europe has once again shown some double-digit growth. The total ecommerce turnover in Europe increased by 11 percent last year, making it worth 534 billion euros. For the current year, a growth rate of 13 percent is expected, which would mean ecommerce in Europe will be worth 602 billion euros in 2018.

The European ecommerce industry has thus shown some significant growth, if you take into account the industry was worth no more than 307 billion euros five years ago. This is one of the many findings of the new European B2C Ecommerce Report by Ecommerce Europe.

Most of the ecommerce in Europe is still being generated in Western Europe, which accounts for approximately 68 percent of total European online retail turnover. Southern Europe, Northern Europe and Eastern Europe show a much lower share of European ecommerce with 12, 8 and 6 percent respectively. But these are however the regions with the fastest ecommerce. Take for example Romania, where this industry increased by 37 percent last year.

UK, France and Germany dominate European ecommerce

The United Kingdom (€178 billion), France (€93.2 billion) and Germany (€93 billion) are, once again, the three biggest ecommerce markets in Europe. Together, they account for over two-thirds of the total European ecommerce turnover.

Popular online marketplaces in Europe

When it comes to their website ranking, Amazon and eBay are very dominant in Europe. But there’s a new kid on the block, one from Asia. Alibaba Group is slowly moving in from the Eastern countries, to take over the dominance of US marketplace giants Amazon and eBay.

Cross-border shopping in Europe

Consumers got the question on what platform their last cross-border online purchase took place. One in four consumers shopped at Amazon, followed by Alibaba/Aliexpress (14 percent), eBay (8 percent) and Wish (8 percent). Data shows that Amazon is the most popular cross-border webshop in Luxembourg (72 percent) and Austria (64 percent), while eBay leads in Cyprus (63 percent). And AliExpress was most popular in Russia (69 percent) and the Netherlands (35 percent),

Most cross-border shopping in Macedonia and Portugal

When it comes to cross-border online purchases, consumers in Macedonia and Portugal have the most, both with 85 percent of cross-border purchases. They are followed by Luxembourg (79 percent), Switzerland (64 percent) and Iceland (63 percent).

Slovenia has the highest cross-border online purchase growth rate, with 6 percent. That’s more than in countries such as Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany and Finland, that all showed a 5 percent growth rate last year.

38% European shoppers ordered abroad

In total, 38 percent of all online shoppers in Europe ordered abroad in 2017, with half of them ordering goods or services over the internet from sellers from other EU countries.