Spanish E-commerce Continues to Grow in 2019

Spain is home to 46.7 million people; however, more than 54 million local mobile subscriptions can be found. This is a sample of the Internet penetration in Spain, around 93%, which places the country as the fourth largest B2C market in the EU, after the UK, Germany and France.

In 2019 there have already been 42.9 million active internet users, a 9% more than in 2018, 92% of them access the web daily. The smartphone is the most frequent device, used by 87% of the adult population; followed by computers or laptops, with 72%; and the third place corresponding to tablets, with 41%.

Analyzing the activity of e-commerce in Spain during 2018, we find that there are 27.7 million people, 60% of the total population, who made purchases through this channel. This represents a growth of 1.8% over the previous year.

In 2019 these figures just continue growing, the value of e-commerce transactions carried out during 2019 in Spain is 16.3 billion Euros, with an average per capita expenditure of 689.31 Euros.

The most relevant markets in 2019 are the following:

International online players such as Amazon, AliExpress and MediaMarkt are the preferred ones for e-commerce users in Spain. On the other hand, local companies have also an important role on Spanish e-commerce, like El Corte Inglés, Zara and PC Componentes.

When looking at online payments, there is a heavy preference (49%) for third party online payment services such as PayPal. This factor states a relatively high lack of trust from Spanish consumers. This is followed by debit and credit cards (43%) and cash on delivery (5%).

References:

• https://www.statista.com/outlook/243/153/ecommerce/spain
• https://www.ecommercefoundation.org/blog/news-and-publications-1/post/press-release-2018-ecommerce-report-spain-12
• https://ecommercenews.eu/ecommerce-in-europe/ecommerce-spain
• https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2019-spain
• https://www.statista.com/statistics/434264/e-commerce-popular-payment-methods-spain/
• https://www.eshopworld.com/blog/spain-ecommerce-insights-2018/