Hamburg-based secondary market research firm yStats.com has released a new report titled “Europe B2C E-Commerce Market 2018”. According to this report’s findings, online retail sales in Europe are projected to maintain a double-digit growth rate in 2018, with clothing ranked as the leading product category purchased online. The publication also reveals the top E-Commerce market trends and other statistics for online retail in Europe.
European B2C E-Commerce sales are among the world’s largest
Europe is one of the three largest regions in global B2C E-Commerce. Despite advancing maturity, online retail sales in the Old Continent are projected to maintain a double-digit growth rate and reach a new high in 2018, according to a forecast cited in the yStats.com report. The UK is expected to remain the region’s largest online retail market, followed by France and Germany. The countries of Eastern Europe are also seeing growth in E-Commerce sales, but lag behind their neighbours in the West in terms of online shopping penetration.
Clothing leads E-Commerce spending across Europe, while payment patterns vary
The leading product category purchased by online shoppers across the region is clothing. More than two in three online shoppers in Germany bought clothes over the Internet, spending more on this than any other category in 2017, as the yStats.com report reveals. While the dominance of fashion E-Commerce is consistent across most countries of the region, some variance exists in terms of the payment methods preferred by digital buyers. While credit or debit card was the top online payment method in France, Belgium and the Nordics, PayPal and other E-Wallets ranked higher than plastic in countries including Spain and Italy, and were nearly as popular in the UK.
Omnichannel, mobile and cross-border shopping trends on the rise in Europe
Some of the top E-Commerce market trends in Europe, highlighted in the yStats.com report, include mobile and cross-border online shopping. Furthermore, omnichannel shopping patterns are evolving as consumers’ path to purchase crosses both digital and physical retail spaces. For example, in Italy two-thirds of online shoppers researched products on the Internet before buying them in-store, and nearly as many used brick-and-mortar as a research channel for preparing an online purchase. These and other trends are projected to drive further growth of B2C E-Commerce sales in Europe.
