American E-retailing Has Invaded Europe

Four of the top 20 e-retailers in Europe are American companies—Amazon, Staples, Apple and Dell. All told, American companies control an amazing 27% of the European e-commerce market. More important,according to Internet Retailer, American companies grew their online e-retail business in Europe last year by 25%, compared to just 14% for Europe-based e-retailers.

Internet Retailer identifies the following factors for American e-retailers success:

• Unlike European e-retailers American e-retailers do not constrain their e-commerce operations to any one country


• Us e-retailers are building warehouses throughout the Continent to serve the entire common market


• Americans e-retailers are not retail chains managed by executives who have spent their careers running brick and mortar stores


• Big store chains dominate e-retailing in Europe, accounting for 43% of all e-commerce sales in 2010, with web-only merchants, catalogers and manufacturers accounting for the rest


• American e-retailers are not dabbling in e-retailing as European retail chains often do and they are using the same e-commerce technologies that work well in America


• While American e-retailers sites “speak” multiple languages, they are based on a single brand

Given all this, it is no surprise that Amazon is the #1 e-retailer in Europe. Contrast this with Europe's presence in the US e-retailing market. According to Internet Retailer, European companies own only 11 of the 500 leading retail web sites ranked and profiled in their Top 500 e-retailer Guide. Together, these e-retailers account for a diminutive 1.6% of the total e-retail sales recorded by the 500 largest e-retailers in the U.S. last year. And that share is shrinking: Europe’s e-retailers last year only grew their U.S. retail web sales by just 12%, compared to the 18% growth rate registered by the American companies ranked in the Top 500 Guide.

European e-retailers are not letting this invasion go unchallenged and are beginnning to adopt the American e-retailing model. However, it will take 2-3 years of dogged effort for them to catch up and turn around the American e-retailing onslaught.