Last updated on May 18th, 2021 at 11:12 am

The E-Commerce Race: EU’s Top E-Retailer is AMERICAN!

You read that correctly.

The 2015 list of Top 500 European E- Retailers is out, and the results are in.

European e-commerce sales have skyrocketed, making Europe the second-largest regional e-commerce market behind Asia. And US Based Amazon.com is dominating the market; proving that US-based merchants can not only compete but dominate in European and other global markets.

Below is the breakdown of Europe’s 500 largest e-retailers by country. European companies in UK, France and Germany are currently home to the highest population of E-retailers in the top 500 list.

However, as in any exciting race, there are unexpected twists and turns- new entrants filled with global potential challenge the leaders of the race. The newer contestants get stronger as they catch on to the winning strategies.

Cross-Border E-Commerce: A Winning Strategy

If we were to place our bets on the fastest horse in the European e-commerce race, we’d best place it on the e-retailers that push hardest for cross-border merchandising.

The Europe 500 reveals that the leading web merchants that focused on markets outside of their home country enjoyed much faster growth rates than those that concentrated solely on their home markets.

Case in point: this year’s reigning European e-commerce champion is Amazon.com based out of the US.

How did Amazon earn its European e-commerce gold medal?  The key ingredient is having localized websites, which Amazon operates in 6 countries- U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.  This localization effort fueled Amazon’s total European web sales, causing it to grow by 20% last year to over $23 billion!  That’s three times larger than the second business in the Europe 500, Otto Group.

More European-based web retailers have picked up on the tremendous power of cross-border e-commerce, and are joining the race.

For instance, 8^th ranking Berlin based e-retailer Zalando SE, increased its’ 2014 web sales by 26%!  This rate is bolstered by its’ fast sales growth from outside of its German-speaking markets (Germany, Austria and Switzerland).  Zalando sells to 15 European countries including U.K., France, Netherlands and Spain. That’s 12 European markets outside of its three core markets! 

Strong E-Commerce Entrants from Eastern Europe

Emerging e-commerce market entrants from Eastern Europe and Turkey, are proving to be strong, early contenders in the e-commerce race.   44 e-retailers headquartered in Poland, Czech Republic and Russia grew their combined web sales from $7.1 billion to $9.2 billion over the past year. 

Turkey enjoyed the biggest gains- all 19 of its retailers in the 2015 Europe 500 grew by 52.8%! In addition, two of the top 5 fastest growing Europe 500 web merchants are Turkish.

Western European e-commerce markets of Germany, U.K. and France have long been leaders in the European e-commerce race, but as you can see, Eastern Europe e-retailers are proving to be strong potential competitors.   Now imagine companies like Turkish based Morhipo, and Hepsidburada, actively engaging in cross-border e-commerce, there would be a real showdown between the East and West! 

Have you thought about incorporating cross-border e-commerce in your strategy? Now is the perfect time for US based merchants to break into foreign markets. If so, you are making one of the most important decisions for your brand.  You too can be an e-commerce champion through high quality website localization and using translation services for E-Commerce.  Contact us today, to see how we can help you bring your multilingual website to life and give your brand a global reach.