Of the thousand largest online sellers in Europe, 49 percent have their headquarters on the continent. A majority are based elsewhere, primarily in the United States or China. The share of online traffic for these non-European companies is even higher.
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.
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.
Non-European sellers attract three-quarters of all traffic.
“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.
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.”
Many hundreds of marketplaces operating across Europe.
Internet Retailing highlights both the emergence of specialized vertical marketplaces from new entrants and the marketplace initiatives of established (online) retailers.
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.
