Monday, April 8, 2013

Amazon Dominates European Ecommerce

An article from Internet Retailer revealed that Amazon had 26.4 million unique European visitors in December, making it the most visited online retailer in Europe. This is not surprising given that Amazon is also ranked in the top five most visited sites in the US, along with Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Facebook.



How does Amazon rank compared to other top online retailers?

The following graphic from comScore's "2013 Europe Digital Future in Focus" report compares the top 10 European retail websites (ranked by unique visitors):



























*Amazon also had 6.6 million unique mobile visitors, which was 87% higher than last year.

How is Amazon so successful?

An interesting study by Stephane Distinguin shared by thinkfab revealed that Amazon's core success comes from one man's vision. Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon, believed, "You could build a store online that simply could not exist in any other way. You could build a true superstore with exhaustive selection; and customers value selection."

According to this study, Bezos based his business strategy on three ideas:
  • Digital enables limitless inventory
  • Digital boosts customer care
  • Digital allows high margin, lowest prices
What began as an online seller of books quickly turned into a giant online retailer, introducing two new product categories every year for almost a decade, according to the same study. 

What else did we learn from comScore's "2013 Europe Digital Future in Focus" report?

Online Users:
  • 408.3 million people in Europe used their desktop or laptop to access the internet in December (+7% from last year)
  • Russia has the largest number of European internet users with 61.3 million. 
Mobile Device Users
  • 57% of mobile phone owners in Europe own a smart phone
  • 14.1% of EU5 smart phone users purchased a good or service from their device
  • 37.3% of EU5 smart phone shoppers purchased clothing or accessories
Social Media Users
  • European social media users spent 6.7 hours per month on social media sites and blogs



by Samantha Warner
Marketing Extraordinaire