COVID-19 driver of e-commerce in Europe

In this year’s survey, e-commerce consumers answered questions about how the coronavirus pandemic affected them personally, and whether they had changed their e-commerce habits. The trend is clear. In countries where many people said they were worried about the pandemic, the proportion of respondents stating that they shopped more online than usual was also the greatest.

Amazon and Zalando: two dominant marketplaces

Europe has generally lagged slightly behind the US in growth of online marketplaces. This is logical since the original – Amazon – is a US-based phenomenon that now dominates American e-commerce.
However, German Zalando has grown to be an important European marketplace for fashion, sports and beauty, and now has a presence in many countries. 

Germany and UK still Europe’s strongest e-commerce markets

European e-commerce is becoming increasingly mature, particularly as evidenced by the nearly 15 percent increase in average spending per person and year in the countries surveyed in 2020, compared with 2019. Germany and the UK are the largest markets. In Germany, 61 million consumers state that they have shopped online in the past year, and in the UK this figure is 49 million.