Europe: online marketplaces sales €120 billion

With the strong growth in ecommerce across Europe, also comes a strong growth in marketplaces. European online marketplaces are estimated to value around 120 to 150 billion euros. But the markets for online marketplaces differ per country.

That marketplaces make up a large proportion of ecommerce in Europe has been recorded earlier, but with the growth in ecommerce itself, marketplaces have seen a strong growth this year as well. Earlier this month, research by Inriver showed that nearly half of all online product searches in the UK and Germany started in marketplaces.

50% of online shoppers use marketplaces.

A recent report published by RetailX states that across Europe, 50 percent of online shoppers use marketplaces. In the UK, as many as 64 percent of shoppers turn to marketplaces first. This is a big change from what RetailX had previously recorded: 57 percent. A quarter of all UK online shopping happened on Amazon.

Ecommerce in Europe €396 billion in 2021

Total ecommerce revenues in Europe are estimated at 396 billion euros in 2021. With marketplaces garnering around half of ecommerce sales, RetailX estimates the value of European marketplaces around 120 billion to 150 billion euros. This is a significant growth when compared to the 100 billion euros estimate in RetailX’s report from last year.

Marketplace landscape in Europe

While marketplaces are becoming more dominant across Europe, the report shows that there are significant differences per country. In Spain, the market is still dominated by mixed marketplaces that are marketplace spin-offs from retailers, such as El Corte Inglés and Privalia.es. The most established European marketplaces have grown in their home regions, with the Dutch Bol.com reaching 79 million visits per month. Germany’s OTTO has grown it’s revenue in 2020 with 37 percent when compared to its net sales in 2019.

‘Allegro is now third largest marketplace in Europe.’

According to the report, as of April this year, Polish marketplace Allegro was the third largest marketplace in Europe. With 185 million visits per month, it is now just behind Amazon and eBay. Russia’s general marketplace Wildberries has also been growing, it now has around 149 million monthly visitors. This puts it in fourth place in Europe by visits.

Top 5 most popular marketplaces

The 5 most popular marketplaces based on how manu European consumers use them are listed below:

Ecommerce across Europe

Germany and the UK have a very high proportion of marketplaces compared to non-marketplace retailers across the whole online retail traffic sample. There is a growing proportion of retailers that are also becoming marketplaces, running marketplaces or who want to sell on marketplaces.

The Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Norway, Sweden and Slovenia are on the other end of the scale as they are all very light on marketplaces. The majority of online sales in those countries come from non-marketplace sites.

The report mentions that Spain, Italy, Poland and to some extent France and Portugal have an almost 50 percent split between marketplaces and non-marketplace retailers. In these markets Amazon isn’t a dominant presence. Allegro and Wildberries are targeting these markets, potentially filling that Amazon void soon.