Cyprus mirrors EU growth in online sales

In 2020, 17 per cent of Cyprus enterprises reported that their online sales reached at least 1 per cent of their total turnover, according to new Eurostat figures published on Tuesday.

This represents a two percentage point (pp) increase compared with 2019 and more than double the 8 per cent recorded in 2012.

Despite the growth, Cyprus’ figure was below the EU average of 19 per cent of enterprises that reported that their online sales reached at least 1 per cent of their total turnover. That average was 1 percentage point (pp) higher compared with 2019 and 6 pp up from 13 per cent in 2010.

Eurostat said the steady growth in the use of e-commerce sales in many countries was heightened by the coronavirus pandemic and movement restrictions, which led both customers and businesses to an increased interest in online sales.

Denmark recorded the highest share of enterprises selling online (e-sales of at least 1 per cent of their total turnover) among the EU Member States with 38 per cent, the same share as the previous year. Ireland and Sweden came in second with 34 per cent each, registering a 1 and 3 pp increase compared with 2019.

Belgium and Finland registered the highest increase in enterprises selling online (e-sales of at least 1 per cent of their total turnover) in 2020, both up by 5 pp to 31 per cent and 24 per cent respectively. In contrast, Romania recorded the highest decrease among the Member States, down by 6 pp to 12 per cent, followed by Czechia (-5 pp to 25 per cent) and Portugal (-4 pp to 16 per cent).

Similar to previous years, and based on the location of the customers, it was most common to sell to clients in the own country (22 per cent of enterprises), with sales to clients in other EU countries (9 per cent) and the rest of the world (5 per cent) less frequent.

Moreover, in 2020, 19 per cent of EU enterprises conducted online sales using websites or apps (web sales), either to private consumers (B2C) (15 per cent) or to business and government (B2BG) (12 per cent), and 6 per cent used EDI-type sales in order to sell mainly to their business customers. The enterprises performed their web sales through the enterprises’ own website or app (17 per cent of enterprises) or through an e-commerce marketplace (8 per cent).

Source dataset: isoc_ec_eseln2