Zalando leads in cross-border commerce, second-hand marketplaces grow

Cross-Border Commerce Europe, the platform for 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 retailers are Amazon, Zalando, eBay, AliExpress and Etsy. Apart from Zalando, the other top five players belong to the category of mass merchants. These have thus achieved remarkable success in the fashion sector. Although Amazon holds 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). A categorisation of the top 250 by business sector 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. If the 250 companies are also classified according to their dominant product categories, Zalando ranks 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 players is expanding. Besides Shein, Cider, another Chinese fast fashion brand launched in 2020, will reshape the future of fast fashion. In addition, Chinese online marketplace Temu is also gaining momentum in this country. The platform is owned by Pinduoduo Holdings Inc. and offers heavily discounted goods, mainly 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 grow thanks to secondhand

The online fashion and beauty market in the EU generated 122 billion euros in sales in 2022. Of this, 45 billion euros crossed borders. By 2026, total sales are expected to reach 144 billion euros, a growth of 18 percent. This upward trend is supported by the presence of C2C marketplaces that offer sustainable second-hand fashion and resale options. Nearly one-sixth of online fashion sales in 2026 are expected to come from C2C resale platforms.

The total B2C online retail market in the EU is 729 billion euros in 2022, with fashion and beauty accounting for 17 percent of this total. It is expected that by 2026, more than a quarter of fashion and beauty trade will be conducted online. This development is supported by emerging trends such as the metaverse, livestream shopping, personalisation and second-hand fashion.