E-Commerce industry in Europe:

The ecommerce industry in Europe consists of three major players, upcoming

markets and thriving startup scenes. But its difficult to see the European
ecommerce industry as one, as it consists of several regions that all play their own
role. Lets have a look at ecommerce in Europe (E-Commerce in Europe, 2016).

CONTINENT EUROPE
Population 742.45 million people
% internet users (EU) 76.5%
Online sales 455 billion (2015)
Online stores worth mentioning: Otto, Tesco, CDiscount, Bol.com, Zalando, H&M

Major Players:

Of course, in Europe major American retailers have their influence on local

ecommerce industries. As a matter of fact, Amazon was the most-visited online
retailer in Europe in 2012. But thats not to say Europe doesnt have it own
Amazons. In Internet Retailers top 10 list of biggest online retailers in Europe,
Amazon, Staples and Apple are the only American retailers. The list also contains
Otto (Germany), Tesco (UK), Groupe Casino (France), Shop Direct Group, Home
Retail Group (both UK), Zalando (Germany) and John Lewis (UK) (E-Commerce in
Europe, 2016).

Economic contribution:

Looking into the total value of e-commerce sales relative to a countrys economic
output Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the UK leads the pack: the e-commerce
market amounts to a total of 6.1% of total GDP. Denmark is in second place with
4.4%. The third place spot goes to Finland, where 3.5% of GDP comes from online
sales, followed by France, with 3%. The Netherlands is again in seventh place,
where 2.4% comes from online sales of GDP in our country. The rest of the top 10
consists of Ireland, the Czech Republic, Norway and Sweden (European B2C e-
commerce market breaks through 500 billion mark, 2016).

There are about 296 million online shoppers in Europe at the moment, each of them
spending an average of 1,540 euros online last year. Marlene ten Ham, secretary
general at Ecommerce Europe, thinks the report provides a promising outlook for
the ecommerce industry. Today, only 43 percent of the European population of 15
years and older shop online, and 16 percent of them buy in another country.
Moreover, 16 percent of SMEs sell online and less than half of them sell online
across borders. The full potential of the European ecommerce market has not yet
been reached, she says.
For 2017 the organization forecasts total online sales of goods and services being
worth 598 billion euros, while in 2018 a total online revenue of 660 billion Euros is
predicted (Ecommerce in Europe to reach 509.9 billion in 2016, 2016).

Challenges:

There is absolutely no doubt that Europe is a key market in terms of e-commerce.

With significant year-on-year growth, yet much potential still to come, online
retailers should not dismiss the opportunities Europe holds. While France, Germany
and the UK can be attractive markets due to their size and success, emerging
markets such as Spain and Poland should not be forgotten about, both of which are
expected to see significant sales growth in 2016, with 18.8% and 17.8% growth
respectively according to Retail Research.

However, no matter the market all e-retailers are set to face a range of challenges
in the coming year. Twengas 2016 merchant survey recently revealed that
European online retailers consider customer acquisition, business profitability and
competition with other e-commerce sites as their top challenges. In terms of
customer acquisition in particular, Search Engine Marketing is the most popular
channel for acquisition, yet e-retailers are still faced with an array of issues. Bid
management, profitability and keyword management are the top 3 challenges in
SEM (Gemma, 2016). According to ecommerce news The three main challenges for
merchants striving to expand their business cross-border are legal fragmentation,
taxation issues (VAT) and logistics/distribution (Ecommerce in Europe to reach
509.9 billion in 2016, 2016).