Portuguese e-commerce Market Grows Significantly

In 2020, only 5.5 million Portuguese people were active as e-commerce shoppers. The pandemic and the necessity to turn to online shopping brought changes to the Portuguese e-commerce market. According to Digitalks, there are 1.67 million new users, recently. Soon leading to coverage of at least 80% of the population.
52% of the Portuguese uses mobile devices for online shopping, while 36% use a desktop or laptop. During 2020, 74% purchased a product or service online, through any device.

Portugal falls behind many European countries with only 75% of internet penetration. Nevertheless, Portugal was still able to have an estimated 150-170% revenue growth in 2020 compared to 2019 by achieving € 6.5 billion e-commerce sales. Thanks to the average e-commerce expenditures rising from €800 to €1100.

More than 80% of the Portuguese population buys in foreign online stores, especially from China, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Due to the lack of digital investment in, and development of, local Portuguese companies, only 39% have built a strong presence online until 2020. As a result, many local companies were just not ready for the abrupt transition during the pandemic, to start or accelerate e-commerce activities. Even to the opposite. Many e-businesses even had to close their doors during the consecutive lockdowns for all kind of logistical reasons.

Amazon ranks at the top of the most popular online stores in net sales in Portugal. Followed by Zara, Apple, Asos, and AliExpress. Despite the dominance of multinationals on the market, national brands and Icecat Free Vendor Central users like Fnac, Worten, and OLX still play a huge role.

Maria Correia