Ecommerce in Portugal

Portugal is a Southern European country, with Spain as its only direct neighbor. It is considered a developed country and has an advanced economy and high living standards. Portugal’s economy was growing harder than the EU average in the 1990s, but later on, its growth rate slowed. And in order to comply with conditions of an EU-IMF financial rescue package (€78bn), the Portuguese government began implementing spending cuts and tax increases several years ago. In May 2011, Portugal became the third Eurozone country to be bailed out of a sovereign debt crisis.

It’s estimated that more than 10.8 million people live in Portugal, of which 42.4% is between 25 and 54 years old. According to data from 2014 about 7 million Portuguese inhabitants (68%) have access to the internet.

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Content:

• Ecommerce customers in Portugal
• The ecommerce market in Portugal
• Big online stores in Portugal
• Latest ecommerce news from or about Portugal

Ecommerce customers in Portugal

Portugal is a country with a lot of e-cheque payments. Payshop is a Portuguese payment solution that allows consumers to pay online by visiting a Payshop agent (such as petrol stations or supermarket) equipped with an invoice of a reference. MBNet from MultiBanco is another often used payment solution. It allows making online transactions with a credit card without having to give away any credit card information to the online merchant. A study from 2017 shows that Portuguese shoppers like to pay with credit card and the aforementioned MB NET service.

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Data from Ecommerce Foundation shows there were about 3.1 million online shoppers in Portugal in 2016. A more recent study, conducted in 2020 by RetailX, shows that when it comes to the share of online shoppers, Portugal is one of the lowest-performing countries, as only 51 percent of the country’s shoppers also shop online. The same study shows that 86 percent of online shoppers in Portugal buy from national sellers, while 53 percent buys from sellers from abroad (other EU countries or non-EU countries).

The ecommerce market in Portugal

Data from Ecommerce Europe shows ecommerce in Portugal increased by 13.3 percent in 2014 and was worth 2.9 billion euros that year. And in 2016, research showed that ecommerce in Portugal was worth 4.2 billion euros in 2016. The business-to-consumer turnover in Portugal was predicted to be worth about 6 billion euros in 2019, the Europe 2020 report by RetailX shows. During that year, the ecommerce turnover increased by 10 percent, which is one of Europe’s lowest growth rates.

Big online stores in Portugal

When ranked by unique visitors per month, Zalando is the biggest B2C ecommerce site in Portugal, followed by Amazon, Euronics, IBS and BonPrix. Other popular ecommerce sites in Portugal are Yoox and Portuguese online stores Salsa and Parfois.

Read all our articles about ecommerce in Portugal.

Last update: September 2020.