Greece’s Top Players in eCommerce - Fast Fashion, Quick Commerce & Bad News for Amazon

In recent years, eCommerce has proliferated in Greece, with the pandemic serving as a major driving force. Understanding the key players and the strategies that have led to their success is a meaningful way to assess the Greek eCommerce landscape, beyond just revenue growth. 

This article provides an overview of the competitive environment in which Greece's top online stores operate. One curiosity about this market that stands out is that Amazon does not offer a national domain in Greece. Therefore, we also examine this aspect of Greek eCommerce. As a final consideration, this article sheds light on the country’s burgeoning quick commerce market, which is becoming increasingly commonplace.  

Starting with the top players, we take a closer look at the leading online retailers in the Greek market, analyzing their performance and the categories they specialize in. One of the most striking insights reveals a dominant trend within the market: Fashion's leading role in Greek eCommerce.

Fashion Dominates the Greek Online Market

Our ecommerceDB Markets section shows which online stores in Greece generated most revenue in 2022. A first glance shows the prominent role of fashion in the Greek market. Three out of the top five players in Greek eCommerce are pure fashion stores. Among all product categories, fashion is the one that has the largest share in the Greek online market, reaching almost a third of all online sales.

At the same time, these three fashion stores are also based outside of Greece. Shein is a company that generates most of its revenue in the U.S., but its overall strategy is based on a Chinese business model, similar to major online platforms such as Alibaba, Wish, and Temu. Zara is owned by the Spanish conglomerate Inditex, and H&M is a Swedish retailer. 

Two online stores in this ranking are based in Greece, public.gr and plaisio.gr. Of these, Public is ranked first, while Plaisio is ranked fourth. Both stores are similar in that they are well-established brick-and-mortar retailers in the country, having entered the online market after solidifying their presence in the physical retail landscape. The same is true for H&M and Zara, while Shein is the only pure online retailer on this list. 

So what are the dominant strategies that these top stores use to consolidate their position in the Greek online market?

Success Strategies of the Top Online Players in Greek eCommerce

A close analysis of the strategies employed by the top 5 online stores in Greece reveals four core techniques. Each of these dominant players embodies at least one of the aspects described below. 

Affordability Reigns Supreme

In our previous insight into Greek market dynamics and consumer preferences, we discussed the importance of affordably priced products in the country.  

On the one hand, this is evidenced by the presence of the three fast fashion online stores in the top sellers ranking, whose very business model is based on offering fast-produced and low-cost products to customers. 

On the other hand, consumers reflect this sentiment by citing free delivery and discounts as the features that most motivate them to shop online. With 71% of online shoppers in Greece also stating that they spend time searching for the best deals online, the success of brands that cater to this frugal mindset is both a reflection of and a response to prevailing consumer preferences in Greece.

However, fast fashion brands do not only base their success on low prices. The next feature of lucrative business strategies in Greece is also an inherent aspect of this model.

Expansive Product Range

Fast fashion brands succeed by offering consumers more items than traditional stores, allowing them to stock up on the latest fashion trends several times a year. Shein has taken this method to an extreme, using more than 6,000 garment factories in China to continuously offer new products on its website. 

Greece’s number one online store, Public, is not a fast fashion company. Nevertheless, its main strategy is based on providing consumers with a wide range of products. Electronics & Media is the company’s main focus, but it also includes Toys, Hobby & DIY. In 2018, Public launched Greece’s first online marketplace, thereby expanding its product range and giving smaller retailers the opportunity to reach a wider audience.

Omnichannel Services

An omnichannel strategy is one in which companies offer customers a variety of ways to receive their orders, including home delivery and in-store pickup of products ordered online. The flexibility inherent in this method helps customers receive their orders according to their daily schedules. 

The two Greek stores, Public and Plaisio, an electronics retailer, strengthened their position during the pandemic by leveraging an extensive logistics network and exclusive partnerships. These strategic moves have enabled them to develop modern IT capabilities that, in turn, facilitate robust omnichannel services in line with changing consumer demand. 

Given that Zara and H&M are also established retailers with both a physical and an online presence, it can be inferred that larger retailers often have advantages in providing omnichannel services to customers. This advantage stems from the need for streamlined logistics and sophisticated technological operations, requirements that may be beyond the financial reach of new or small businesses. As a result, these smaller enterprises may need to rely on external platforms to manage these tasks for them. 

But this is not the only logistics-related aspect that accounts for the success of Greece’s top online players.

Fast Delivery, or the "Amazonization" of the Greek Market

In an increasingly fast-paced world, the ability to deliver orders to customers in a matter of days or even hours can make or break a business. 

A report on Plaisio’s financial position by Eurobank Equities noted that even though Amazon does not operate in the Greek market with a .gr domain, its cross-border impact has spurred the need for faster delivery in the country. Thus, the two dominant Greek online players on our list have developed their own capabilities, both technological and logistical, to meet consumer demand. 

Instead of Greek consumers ordering products on an international Amazon domain and waiting less than a week for their delivery, Plaisio and Public undercut the time it takes to deliver the package. The benefits of this are clear to see: Ranked first and fourth, respectively, Public and Plaisio are generating viable profits in Greece and securing their operations and brand recognition for the long term. 

At this juncture, a question regarding Amazon surfaces: Why has Amazon not entered the Greek market with its own domain?

Amazon Abstains From Investing in the Greek Online Market

In addition to being the largest online retailer in the world, Amazon’s dominance in Europe is particularly striking, generating significantly more sales than other European and national players. Thanks to its wide range of products, fast delivery, competitive prices and widespread brand recognition, Amazon overshadows any other online store. 

In Greece, however, the situation is different. A report by Capital, a Greek affiliate of Forbes, illustrates the reasons for Amazon’s lack of a Greek domain. Two main factors account for its absence: The first is an inadequate infrastructure for Amazon’s operations, which would require large sums of investment and time to build. Due to the Greek landscape, which is characterized by mountains and islands, Amazon could not offer the same convenient and fast services that it does in other countries. 

The second reason, related to the first, is the size of the Greek online market. With relatively low expected online sales compared to other European countries where annual net sales per store are in the billions, Greek eCommerce does not generate enough profit for the retail giant to spend billions investing in sufficient infrastructure. 

Nonetheless, it should be noted that Amazon is not completely absent from the Greek market. Instead of establishing its own domain, the company moved its operations to Athens in 2021 in order to offer its cloud service, or AWS (Amazon Web Services), to existing businesses. Ensuring a viable internet connection not only helps more businesses enter the online market, but also provides Amazon with big data insights that can be leveraged to further expand and optimize its services. 

But before you despair, there are other innovations in the Greek online market that may compensate for the lack of an amazon.gr domain: A burgeoning quick commerce revolution!

Round-the-Clock Immediacy via qCommerce

Quick commerce is a relatively new phenomenon and refers to the delivery of goods that takes less than an hour. In Greece, quick commerce has taken over the operations of eCommerce stores, satisfying consumers’ need for quick delivery, easy purchasing processes, and even 24/7 delivery. 

The quick commerce scene in Greece is diverse and growing, having started with traditional grocery stores offering delivery services, but limited by working hours. Below are the 2021 net sales of the 5 top online grocers in Greece, as published by KPMG.

Sklavenitis dominates the online grocery market with net sales of US$66.2 million in 2021. While the supermarket did not yet reach the top 5 online stores in the overall online market in Greece, these numbers are still significant considering that quick commerce operations have only just begun. 

Next in line is AB Vassilopoulos (US$36.7 million), followed by Metro (US$23.7 million). Galaxias and Masoutis had similar net sales of around US$15 million.

New Entrants Into the Quick Commerce Market Disrupt Online Grocers' Offering

When talking about quick commerce in Greece, one should not ignore the influence of platforms such as InstaShop, Pop Market, Rabbit, and Wolt Market. These quick commerce players offer even more flexibility than their online grocer counterparts, as they provide delivery from affiliated local retailers, which allows for a greater variety of the products to be purchased. 

Affiliate retailers include restaurants and cafes, pharmacies, kiosks, supermarkets, and others. What’s more, because kiosks in particular tend to open 24 hours a day, consumers can place their orders at any time of the day or night – and receive their products within minutes either way. 

As we can see – the Greek development of quick commerce is playing a major role in accelerating online shopping and has reached a point that may herald unimaginable levels of accessibility, availability, and convenience in the future.

Top Online Players in Greece - Key Takeaways

The previous sections focused on the top 5 online players in Greek eCommerce, fashion’s dominance, and the strategic approaches that have solidified the top sellers’ positions. Amazon is absent from the Greek market due to structural characteristics of the country and market, but therefore quick commerce has had a meteoric rise in Greece. 

• Dominance and Strategies of Key Players: The success of top online stores in Greece hinges on affordability, expansive product range, omnichannel services, and fast delivery, with fashion as the most prominent segment. 

• Amazon’s Lack of a .gr Domain: Although Amazon abstains from operating with a Greek domain due to infrastructure and market size challenges, it has shifted its focus to offering its cloud services and to collecting big data insights, taking advantage of the broader market dynamics under the radar. 

• Quick Commerce Revolution: Traditional and new players in Greece are engaging in quick commerce, providing fast and flexible delivery services that meet consumer demands for immediacy and accessibility. 

Sources: Convert Group - Group Olympia