Luxembourg, Ireland and Austria are the leading countries for cross border e-commerce in Europe

Cross-Border Commerce Europe, the platform that stimulates cross-border e-commerce in Europe, is launching an eRank study on 16 European countries. Luxembourg, Ireland and Austria rank in the top three. The EU16’s growing cross-border market share accounts for a turnover of €95 billion in 2018, or 22.8% of total e-commerce.

4 criteria determine the online ranking of cross-border countries: 1) cross-border turnover, 2) associated online market shares, 3) consumer confidence, 4) percentage of cross-border web visitors.

Cross-border turnover and market share criteria

The 5 main countries in terms of market share are: Luxembourg, Ireland, Austria, Portugal and Denmark. This means that for Luxembourg, the share of cross-border e-commerce is 71% of total online trade.
In absolute terms, the United Kingdom reached €22.7 billion; Germany and France also scored among the largest. The impact of Brexit will only become tangible in 2020.

Cross-border criteria from the consumer’s point of view

The five countries with the highest consumer confidence in cross-border e-commerce are: Ireland, Luxembourg, Austria, Belgium and the United Kingdom. This means that the Irish have the highest confidence (76%) in cross-border e-commerce.
The top 5 countries with a higher than average percentage of cross-border web visitors are: Luxembourg, Denmark, Austria, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Luxembourgers have the highest number of visitors to the cross-border online shop with 38%, while the European average is 28%.

In 2018, cross-border e-commerce revenues (including travel) reached €137 billion in Europe, up 13.2% from 2017. The cross-border share of total online sales in Europe (EU16) is 22.8%.

The main challenges consumers face when ordering online across borders are speed of delivery, poorly delivered goods, damaged items and the corresponding return policy.

eRank: Luxembourg as a top 1 cross-border country

The three main European countries which, both from the consumer’s point of view and from the point of view of “cross-border online shopping”: Luxembourg, Ireland and Austria.
Luxembourg ranks second in terms of cross-border trust level, first in terms of number of cross-border web visitors and cross-border market share. “Luxembourg is the absolute winner of cross-border eRank countries, with consumers eagerly ordering on major platforms such as Zalando, Asos, Veepee, FNAC and Amazon. 40% of cross-border purchases are clothing, shoes and accessories,” explains Carine Moitier.

Belgium (eRank 8) has good results in terms of consumer confidence in cross-border e-commerce, but this has not yet been spontaneously converted into cross-border shopping. Belgium represents €2.2 billion in cross-border sales, for a market share of 25%. On the other side of the border, Belgians buy mainly from Zalando, Zara, H & M, Amazon, Wish and AliExpress, as well as from our northern neighbours. The Netherlands (eRank 16), on the other hand, is an even smaller and smaller cross-border country, with only 15% with 3 billion euros; the reason is the large choice of Dutch online shops such as Bol.com, Coolblue, Wehkamp….