Europe's Ecommerce Market Is Estimated at US$730 Billion in 2026. Where Should Brands Focus?

Europe's ecommerce market is estimated at US$730 billion in 2026, up from US$680 billion in 2025, and is forecast to reach US$1.07 trillion by 2031. That estimate provides useful context, but it doesn't tell an overseas brand which route to market to build first, or which operational gaps could stop it converting demand into sales.

The short answer: B2B ecommerce is forecast to grow at roughly 9.7% a year, ahead of the 7.86% forecast for the market overall - about 23% faster, not close to double. Marketplace options are also widening, from Kaufland's new Dutch marketplace to TikTok Shop's expansion across Europe. Neither shift is about a lack of demand. Both are about which brands have built the operational structure to capture growth that already exists.

Here is where each of those shifts is heading, and what consistently stops brands from capturing their share of it.

Why Europe's Ecommerce Market Is Estimated at US$730 Billion in 2026

Europe's ecommerce market grew from an estimated US$680 billion in 2025 to US$730 billion in 2026, according to Mordor Intelligence's Europe E-commerce Market report. Mordor forecasts the market will reach US$1.07 trillion by 2031, a 7.86% compound annual growth rate, and its definition covers online-paid sales of goods and services across both B2C and B2B commerce.

These figures should be read as one publisher's estimate rather than a settled market consensus. Other public sources use different definitions, countries and transaction types, so their totals aren't directly comparable.

B2C remains the larger segment in Mordor's model, accounting for an estimated 79.35% of market value in 2025, and is still the market most overseas brands think about first when planning a UK or EU entry. But Mordor's forecast points to a faster growth rate for B2B than for the market overall - and that is the part most entry plans don't account for.

That matters for two reasons. It explains why the size of the opportunity keeps expanding even as individual brands report tougher trading conditions. And it points to where a new entrant should be building capability first.

Why B2B Ecommerce Deserves More Attention in European Market-Entry Plans

Mordor forecasts 9.7% annual growth for European B2B ecommerce, against 7.86% for the market overall - about 23% higher, not close to double. Procurement teams increasingly expect the same buying experience they get as consumers: clear pricing, self-serve ordering, account-level visibility. Most brands still build their digital presence around B2C first, treating trade and wholesale buyers as an afterthought.

We regularly see the operational gap behind that afterthought. One brand we worked with was running an ecommerce platform and a finance system with no CRM sitting between them - no single place tracking prospects, vendor relationships, or the trade pipeline. Ecommerce and finance both worked fine on their own. Nobody had visibility of the commercial relationships in between.

The opportunity cost of that gap can be substantial. A professional communications brand we manage on Amazon UK generated 42% of its Amazon UK revenue from business buyers within its first six months on the platform, without running any active B2B targeting at all. Amazon Business, marketplace-based trade purchasing and direct trade portals deserve deliberate consideration for that reason, rather than being treated as later additions. Brands that treat B2B as secondary risk leaving a faster-growing part of the market on the table.

Why Marketplace Diversification Requires Brand Control

A 2024 industry report by ChannelEngine and Cross-Border Commerce Europe forecast that marketplaces would account for around half of European online consumer-electronics trade by 2025, up from nearly 40% in 2023. That is a forecast rather than a confirmed result, and it doesn't isolate sales made specifically by third-party sellers. It still points to the growing importance brands and analysts place on marketplace channels.

Recent platform launches back that up. Kaufland Global Marketplace launched in the Netherlands on 08/09/2026, with Spain expected to follow shortly - we cover what this expansion means for brands building a marketplace strategy in our breakdown of the European marketplace landscape. TikTok Shop is now live in ten European markets, comprising nine EU member states and the UK. Both are evidence that listing on Amazon alone is no longer a complete European go-to-market plan.

Multi-marketplace growth cuts two ways for a brand that hasn't built brand control. We worked with a UK heating controls manufacturer whose Amazon presence had been built entirely by resellers - inconsistent listings, uncontrolled pricing, no direct brand presence. A single-marketplace reseller problem is hard enough to fix. Spread across several marketplaces, brand control has to be designed in from the first listing, not retrofitted once resellers have already taken the shelf.

The growth is real. The operational readiness usually isn't.

In our experience, lack of demand is rarely the barrier. What we consistently see is brands with genuine product-market fit stalling because the infrastructure underneath the opportunity was never built.

A US electronics brand we worked with had already lost approximately £100,000 attempting UK and EU entry independently: the wrong VAT structure, no extended producer responsibility (EPR) packaging registration, and an Amazon account suspended within weeks of launch. After a ground-up rebuild - correct VAT registration, EPR compliance, and a properly structured catalogue - the brand sold over 1,000 units in its first six weeks back on the market, and recovered a five-figure VAT rebate on the period where VAT had been filed incorrectly.

The pattern behind that is common in our client work, and it is rarely about the product. Brands consistently treat market entry as a set of separate projects - VAT registration, EPR and packaging compliance, logistics and 3PL setup, marketplace configuration, listing localisation, and brand control - each with its own timeline and its own way of failing quietly. Most brands stitch together a marketing agency, a regulatory partner, and a logistics contact separately, with no single owner of the outcome. When something goes wrong in a new market, and something usually does, nobody is accountable for the whole picture. We cover the eight compliance obligations that actually run in parallel in more detail, because compliance is rarely the single checklist item brands expect it to be.

What This Means for Brands Planning UK or EU Entry in 2026

If you are planning a UK or EU entry, or reviewing one that hasn't performed the way the market size suggested it should, the growth data points in a specific direction. B2B is forecast to grow faster than B2C - if your commercial systems and account management still treat it as an afterthought, that is where the immediate upside sits. Marketplace options are widening, but that only pays off if brand control is built in before resellers or uncontrolled listings take the decision out of your hands.

In our experience, demand is rarely the constraint for brands entering Europe right now. The brands still struggling are usually the ones who haven't built the operational and compliance foundation underneath the opportunity, not the ones who picked the wrong market.

Scale With helps overseas product brands build and run complete UK and European operations - compliance, logistics, marketplace setup, and commercial execution managed under one partner. If your UK or EU entry is not performing the way the market data suggests it should, or you haven't started yet and want the foundation built correctly the first time, we are happy to talk it through.

Frequently Asked Questions

How big is Europe's ecommerce market in 2026?

Mordor Intelligence estimates Europe's ecommerce market at US$730 billion in 2026, up from US$680 billion in 2025, and forecasts it will reach US$1.07 trillion by 2031, a 7.86% compound annual growth rate. These are Mordor's estimates; other reports publish different totals because they use different market definitions and geographical coverage. B2C remains the larger segment, at an estimated 79.35% of market value in 2025, though B2B is forecast to grow faster.

Is B2B ecommerce growing faster than the overall European market?

Yes. Mordor forecasts 9.7% annual growth for European B2B ecommerce, against 7.86% for the market overall - about 23% higher, not close to double. Procurement teams increasingly expect the same buying experience they get as consumers, and most brands haven't built that experience because they design their digital presence around B2C first.

Are European brands moving beyond Amazon?

Brands have a broader range of marketplace options than before, including newer country launches from Kaufland Global Marketplace and TikTok Shop. Public evidence doesn't support the claim that a fixed share of all European brands already run a multi-marketplace strategy, so channel selection should be based on customer fit, operational capacity, and the brand's ability to control listings and reseller activity.

Do marketplaces account for half of European online consumer-electronics sales?

A 2024 industry report forecast that marketplaces would account for around half of European online consumer-electronics trade by 2025. That is a forecast rather than a confirmed result, and it covers marketplaces generally rather than isolating sales made specifically by third-party sellers.

Why do brands with strong product-market fit still struggle to grow in Europe?

In our experience, brands stall because the operational foundation underneath the opportunity - VAT registration, EPR and packaging compliance, logistics setup, and brand control - was not built before launch, or was split across separate specialists with no single owner of the outcome. Fixing the infrastructure is usually what gets growth that was already there moving.