In 2021, for 19.7% of EU enterprises, the e-commerce sales reached at least 1% of their total turnover, which was 0.7 percentage points (pp) higher compared with 2020, Eurostat reports.
Sweden recorded the highest share of enterprises selling online (e-sales of at least 1% of their total turnover) among the EU members with 36.6%, followed by Denmark (35.6%) and Ireland (35.2%). On the other hand, Luxembourg (8.6%), Romania (10.5%) and Bulgaria (11.5%) recorded the lowest shares of enterprises selling online.
The highest increases in EU enterprises reporting that their e-commerce sales reached at least 1% of their total turnover in 2021 (compared with 2020) were recorded in Finland (27.7%; +4.2 pp), Spain (29.5%; +3.7 pp) and Malta (30.0%; +3.3 pp). In contrast, decreases in enterprises selling online (e-sales of at least 1% of their total turnover) were recorded in Denmark (35.6%; -2.7 pp), Greece and Belgium (17.0% and 28.3%, respectively; both -2.3 pp).
19.4% of all EU enterprises reported conducting online sales using websites or apps (web sales) in 2021, either to private consumers (15.6% of EU enterprises) or to businesses and governments (13.1%). A small share of EU enterprises used electronic-data-interchange-type sales in order to sell mainly to their business customers (6.0%). Enterprises performed their web sales through the enterprises’ own website or app (16.6%) or through an e-commerce marketplace (8.6%).
Based on the location of the customers, it was most common for enterprises to conduct web sales to customers in their own country (18.5% of EU enterprises), with less frequent web sales to customers in other EU countries (8.1%) and the rest of the world (4.6%).
