Skip to content

Ecommerce sales exhibit continuing strength in Europe



Join our mailing list

Signifyd regularly publishes free reports packed with business insights, commerce trends and data from our massive Commerce Network. We’ll only email when we have something meaningful to share, no more than once per week. And of course you can unsubscribe any time.

Ecommerce sales continued to provide a few bright spots for retail in Europe, where in-store spending has been devastated by stay-at-home orders and the temporary closure of brick-and-mortar stores.

Overall, ecommerce sales in Europe were up 96% last week compared to the last week of February, which serves as a pre-pandemic benchmark. In fact, more than half of the retail verticals that the Ecommerce Pulse regularly tracks were up week over week for the seven-day period ending May 24.

Luxury goods continued to show strength, up 14% for the week, though not the same strength that resulted in a 51% rise in sales the previous week.

Fashion, Apparel & Luggage showed its first week of increased sales since the last week of April. Though sales were up only 5%, the positive weekly change was only the fourth up week since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11.

In fact, three categories — Leisure & Outdoor, Grocery & Household Goods, and Alcohol, Tobacco & Cannabis — all reversed negative weeks by reporting week-over-week increases in sales for the period ending May 24. Leisure & Outdoor and Grocery & Household Goods were each up 8%. Alcohol, Tobacco and Cannabis sales increased 12% after falling 16% the previous week.

Consumer Medical Supplies & Supplements experienced the biggest turnaround and not for the better. After experiencing a 36% increase in sales in the week of May 11, the category reversed course last week with sales dropping by 36%.

Besides medical supplies, the hardest hit verticals last week included Business Supplies, down 22%, and Beauty & Cosmetics, which plunged 16% after seeing a 21% increase in sales the previous week. The Electronics category was also down 16% for the week just ended.

Mike Cassidy

Mike Cassidy

Mike is the head of storytelling at Signifyd. A former journalist and a retail geek, he covers ecommerce and the way technology is transforming digital commerce. Contact him at [email protected].