yStats.com, a leading secondary market research company based in Hamburg, Germany, has released a new market report titled “Europe Cross-Border B2C E-Commerce 2018.” yStats.com’s CEO and founder, Yücel Yelken, reveals: “Cross-border online shopping is on the rise across the region. The number of online shoppers making purchases from foreign websites increased to nearly one-half of Europe’s overall digital buyers.” The report summarizes the key market trends and statistics, shedding light on cross-border online shopping behaviors in close to 20 countries.
The cross-border online shopping trend rises in Europe
The share of online shoppers in Europe making purchases cross-border increased by more than 10 percentage points over the past 5 years, reaching more than four in ten digital buyers in the EU, and above 50% of the overall region’s online shoppers, according to data cited in the yStats.com report. The main motives for buying from out-of-country sellers included finding better deals and products or brands not available at domestic shops. At the same time, payment security and lack of clarity regarding total costs of fees and duties were the top two concerns of Europe’s online shoppers when buying cross-border.
Top E-Commerce product categories purchased abroad
Fashion and electronics were the leading product categories bought online by Europe’s cross-border shoppers last year. Books and other media products shared the third rank with cosmetics and perfumes, with some variance among the countries covered in the yStats.com report. Also the top destinations for cross-border online shopping varied by country, with China, the UK, the USA and Germany named most frequently as the countries purchased from.
Both large enterprises and SMEs participate in European cross-border E-Commerce
Although large international players such as Alibaba, Amazon, eBay and Wish are among the main beneficiaries of the cross-border E-Commerce growth, smaller European companies are also grasping the benefits of online exports. According to a survey of EU companies cited in the yStats.com report, the share of E-Commerce enterprises selling cross-border within the region was relatively consistent across the company sizes, with only a one percentage point difference in cross-border E-Commerce sales penetration between small and large online sellers.
