Cross-Border Commerce Europe, the platform promoting cross-border e-commerce in Europe, presents a ranking of the leading online retailers and marketplaces for fashion and beauty in Europe in its new study “Top 250 Fashion & Beauty Retail Europe”.
The leading cross-border fashion suppliers are Amazon, Zalando, eBay, AliExpress and Etsy. Apart from Zalando, the other top 5 players belong to the mass retailer category. These have thus achieved remarkable success in the fashion sector. Although Amazon takes the top position in the cross-border e-ranking, Zalando has a larger online fashion market share (9.8 percent) compared to Amazon (8.3 percent).
The top 10 cross-border fashion companies in the EU together hold more than a third of the online fashion market share (33.84 percent). Categorizing the top 250 by business area shows Nike as the leading brand manufacturer, H&M as the leading retailer, Amazon as the leading pure player and EMP (Exclusive Merchandise Products) as the leading mail order company. When the 250 companies are also classified according to their dominant product categories, Zalando comes first in the fashion category, while Notino takes first place in the beauty products category.
New fast fashion players
In 2023, the list of fast fashion providers will expand. In addition to Shein, Cider, another Chinese fast fashion brand that launched in 2020, is also set to reshape the future of fast fashion. In addition, the Chinese online marketplace Temu is also gaining in importance here. The platform is owned by Pinduoduo Holdings Inc. and offers heavily discounted goods, mostly shipped directly from China.
Overall, British consumers are more open to American and Chinese companies, while German and French consumers have a stronger preference for European companies.
C2C marketplaces are growing thanks to secondhand
The online market for fashion and beauty in the EU achieved sales of 122 billion euros in 2022. Of this, 45 billion euros went across borders. Total sales are expected to reach 144 billion euros by 2026, which corresponds to growth of 18 percent. This upward trend is supported by the presence of C2C marketplaces offering sustainable second-hand fashion and resale options. Almost a sixth of online fashion sales in 2026 are expected to come from C2C resale platforms.
The total B2C online retail market in the EU will be worth €729 billion in 2022, with fashion and beauty accounting for 17 percent of this total. By 2026, more than a quarter of fashion and beauty retail is expected to be conducted online. This development is supported by emerging trends such as the metaverse, livestream shopping, personalization and second-hand fashion.