Cross-Border Commerce Europe has published its third edition of the “Top 500 online cross-border EU retailers”, an annual ranking of the 500 best European cross-border online stores.
H&M Group is strongly represented
The ranking by Cross-Border Commerce Europe is based on four indicators. In addition to online cross-border turnover, the organisation takes into account: SEO indicators, the number of countries in which the retailer is active and the number and percentage of cross-border visitors.
Ikea takes first place with a cross-border turnover of 5.1 billion euros, an increase of 11 per cent compared to 2019. It is striking that H&M Group appears in the top 10 with three brands (H&M, Cos and &Other Stories), while Zalando vanishes from the list.
Incidentally, for the first time, this top-10 consists exclusively of omnichannel retailers. They saw an average increase of 45 per cent in online trade. In the fourth quarter of 2020, it even increased by 70 per cent. Of course, this was due to the closure of non-essential stores. However, online could not compensate for everything: fashion lost 15 per cent turnover. In contrast, food stores saw a 10 per cent increase in sales (physical + online).
Last year, the total turnover from cross-border e-commerce (excluding travel) in Europe increased by 35 per cent to 146 billion. European retailers generate about 87 billion euros of it. The top 500 retailers are responsible for just over 53 billion euros of those sales.