Most top online sellers in Europe are not European

This is reported by Internet Retailing, based on data from RetailX. The research subsidary of the British industry publication recently released its RetailX Europe Top1000 360° report, which lists a thousand ecommerce and multichannel retailers known for their strong sales performance and exceptional customer service. It is the first time the headquarters of Europe’s largest online sellers have been analyzed.

Headquarters elsewhere

Of the thousand companies, a slight majority (51 percent) have their headquarters outside of Europe. The traffic share of these non-European companies in the top thousand is even larger, at 74 percent.

“Naturally”, writes Internet Retailing, “this includes Amazon and eBay, which dominate the marketplace landscape in the region and globally. But it also points to the increasing power and reach of companies like Shein, Alibaba, and Temu, which have captured a significant share of sales in the region in a short period.” However, unlike traffic share, the report does not highlight the total revenue share of non-European companies.

Marketplaces in Europe

In an affiliated report, ChannelX delves into the dominant role of online marketplaces in European ecommerce, noting that many consumers effectively use them as retail search engines. According to the researchers, there are approximately 400 D2C marketplaces operating across Europe, along with more than 250 B2B platforms. “That is a lot of online real estate, even considering the levels of traffic within the sector.”

Internet Retailing highlights both the emergence of specialized vertical marketplaces from new entrants and the marketplace initiatives of established (online) retailers.

Click & collect

The RetailX study recently revealed that a majority (54 percent) of the top thousand European online retailers, categorized by groups rather than sales rankings, offer a pick-up option.

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