Introduction to Spanish ecommerce market

Spain is home to about 46.7 million people, around half of them making purchases online. This number is lower than the European average (about 57%), the share of online sales across the Spanish market is only 3.6%, but this number is increasing year after year.

In recent years, Spain has suffered less economic growth due to the financial crisis, which has also reflected on online sales, but the situation is improving, with GDP growth at 3% in 2017, increasing the popularity and purchasing power of the population.

The political situation in Catalonia raises concerns, as it is unclear how the situation will evolve, several large companies have left Catalonia over the past year. But this situation does not seem to have had an impact on e-commerce throughout Spain.

Categorization of online stores

The Spanish e-commerce market consists of 2 categories of online stores - big players such as Inditex, ElCorteIngles, and smaller stores with a turnover of up to 1 million euro a year. 70% of all online purchases in Spain were made through comparators and marketplace in 2017.

Most popular product categories

The biggest player in the Spanish online market is Amazon (estimated market share is around 30%, used by up to 55% of buyers for product searches and information). Spain is fourth in the European Union in terms of e-commerce revenue (behind Great Britain, Germany and France).

Profile of the Spanish online consumer

The profile of the Spanish online consumer is as follows: 41 years old, lives in a 3-member household, 58% has a university degree, 59% has a child, uses social medias (83%), spends around 1100 Euros a year on online purchases.

Spaniards buy on average 3 times a month on average and spend approximately € 77 on each purchase. The main motive for buying online is convenience (practicality, time-saving, fast delivery), then offer, price, trust, recommendations, online advertising. Up to 60% of shoppers admitted they were waiting for a special discount event (like Black Friday) or discount coupons. The most important factors in choosing a particular store are offer, price, delivery, after-sales service and trust.

Shoppers' expectations and habits

Before buying the goods, Spaniards tend to get information about products via Internet (in this case it is 63% via the marketplace, 48% via the e-shop, 47% via search engines and 28% via comparisons), so it is essential to increase your orders in Spain to have well-mastered translations into spanish of descriptions of your products.

Resources for Product Info

Local conditions for the returns of goods are very important for a Spanish client - Spaniards like to shop in foreign stores, but do not like to return goods to another country, especially if it means extra costs for them. So take advantage of Expandeco services such as stores localization in Spain or a collection point in Spain to increase the trust of local customers and the number of orders.

Opinion of Expandeco

Spain is a very interesting market mainly for stores, which are already established in their markets and are looking look for new growth opportunities. The main recommendations for foreign shops include well-managed customer support in Spanish, customer experience on the site, fast delivery, and free delivery and free returns are all the more desirable.

Also important is the localization of the site in terms of language, copywriting or pricing. This will not only help in gaining Spanish consumer trust, but also in on-page searches (lower bounce rate) and in search engine optimization.

For more information, please contact us.