Hungarian e-commerce: why Hungarian-owned players were forced to retreat

Market restructuring

According to recent data from PwC, Hungarian e-commerce turnover in 2024 amounted to 1920 billion forints, of which nearly 1600 billion forints were turnover of Hungarian and EU players, while 330 billion forints were generated by platforms outside the EU, mainly the Chinese Temu. However, even within the turnover of 1600 billion forints, the share of Hungarian-owned traders is decreasing.

The 2023 Hungarian e-commerce top list was led by the Romanian Emag, the Czech Alza and the also Czech Kifli, while only five of the 15 largest online stores were Hungarian-owned: Euronics, Aqua, Pepita, iPon and Libri.

The obstacles: why were Hungarians unable to expand?

The situation of Hungarian online stores shows interesting contradictions: e-commerce was not adversely affected by either the regime change or privatization, despite this, foreign players clearly dominate the market today.

Disadvantages of competition:

• Hungarian online stores were less daring to enter foreign markets.
• The legal and tax environment in Hungary posed more obstacles than in neighboring countries.
• The high VAT (27%) represents a competitive disadvantage in cross-border trade.
• Hungarian players are less open to using large international marketplaces (e.g. Emag, Allegro).
• Hungarian companies are more cautious in logistics investments, while the Czechs and Poles have built up a strong network of parcel lockers.

The Hungarian government has recognized that Hungarian customers are increasingly migrating to foreign webshops, which is holding back domestic consumption. One possible step is to impose higher tax burdens on foreign webshops that are not registered in Hungary but deliver here. However, this does not help the export opportunities of Hungarian players and may rather lead to an increase in prices.