Spanish online consumers are frequent cross- border buyers, whereas Spanish sites attract relatively few foreign buyers. However, both trade directions have booked over 20 percent year-on-year growth. Most cross-border transactions are taking place inside the EU. This is evident from the latest trimestral overview released by the Spanish authority for markets and competition (La Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC)).
Of the total Spanish e-commerce turnover in the last trimester, 42.6% are transactions inside Spain, while 40% are purchases of Spanish shoppers on foreign sites and 17.5% is generated by foreign consumers shopping on Spanish sites. The research shows that the transactions of Spanish webshoppers abroad significantly exceeds transactions of foreign shoppers on Spanish sites, leading to an e-commerce export deficit of €922.7mn.
Spanish cross-border online shopping has increased by 22% compared to the same timeframe last year, and has reached €1.64bn. E-Commerce sales of Spanish webshops to foreign customers have reached €716.5mn, which represents a 26.3% increase.
Spanish cross-border online shopping is a fairly European business: 90% of Spanish cross-border shopping takes place within the European Union, followed by the United States (4.3%) . When it comes to purchases by foreigners in Spain, 73% of these purchases are made by shoppers from the European Union. Either way, travel, tourism, flights and hotels are either way the most popular cross-border categories.
The research stresses once more the business opportunities for European online retailers in Spain: The economic recovery paired with an evident willingness to buy online from foreign sellers makes Spain a very interesting expansion market.
If you are interested in exploring your possibilities on the Spanish online market, get in touch! We'd love to accompany your expansion project and our Spanish office is ready to get you started!
