European e-commerce market valued at 396 billion euros, Allegro and Wildberries become dark horse platforms

E-commerce platforms are an important part of e-commerce, and along with the boom in e-commerce itself, they have also seen strong growth this year. Recently, Inriver’s research showed that nearly half of online product searches in the UK and Germany start from e-commerce platforms .

A recent report from RetailX found that across Europe, 50% of online shoppers use an e-commerce platform . In the UK, as many as 64% of shoppers first go through an e-commerce platform, with a quarter of online purchases made through Amazon.

Total e-commerce sales in Europe are expected to reach 396 billion euros this year . Since marketplaces account for about half of e-commerce sales, total sales of European marketplaces are estimated to be around 120 billion to 150 billion euros. This is a significant increase compared to the 100 billion euros estimated in RetailX's report last year .

While e-commerce platforms are becoming increasingly dominant in Europe, the report shows that there are significant differences in each country , and local platforms are also growing and developing . Spain, for example , is still dominated by hybrid marketplaces, which are marketplace derivatives of retailers, such as El Corte Inglés and Privalia.es. Bol.com in the Netherlands also has 79 million monthly visits . Germany's OTTO also saw a 37% increase in sales in 2020 compared to its net sales in 2019 .

According to the report, as of April this year , Poland 's e-commerce platform Allegro has grown into the third largest market in Europe, with 185 million page views per month , second only to Amazon and eBay. In addition, Russia's largest e-commerce platform Wildberries has also been growing, now with about 149 million customer traffic per month , ranking fourth in Europe, right behind Allegro .

The report also mentions Spain, Italy, Poland, and to some extent France and Portugal, where Amazon does not dominate, and Allegro and Wildberries are targeting these markets and may soon fill Amazon's vacancy.

Based on consumer preferences, the five most popular e-commerce platforms are Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Asos, and Wish.

In the entire online retail traffic sample, the proportion of e-commerce platform retailers in Germany and the United Kingdom is very high , and more and more retailers are becoming e-commerce platforms, operating e-commerce platforms, or hoping to sell on e-commerce platforms.

The opposite is true in the Czech Republic, Denmark , Finland, Greece, Norway, Sweden and Slovenia , where the market size of e-commerce platforms is very small and most of the online sales in these countries and regions come from non- platform websites.

Europe

E-commerce

Allegro

Wildberries