1 in 5 Greek companies makes more than 1% of its online turnover

Online sales have become an integral part of the business of Greek companies as well, with e-commerce steadily gaining ground. Greece, in fact, as reported by the Labor Inspectorate Bureau, is far from lagging behind the European performance in online sales by companies.

Greece is above the European average, in the percentage of companies that make more than 1% of their turnover electronically. To be precise, our country is above the European average in terms of the percentage of companies, whose at least 1% of the total turnover comes from an online channel. In 2021, 20% of companies in Greece, ie one in five companies, made at least 1% of their sales online.

Just two years earlier, in 2019, the percentage of Greek companies, which made more than 1% of their total online turnover just reached 9%. The over-doubling of this percentage – from 9% in 2019 to 20% in 2021 – proves in practice that the pandemic acted as a digital accelerator for business in Greece.

In the European Union, the corresponding average of companies, which make at least 1% of their online sales, for 2021 was slightly lower than Greece and specifically at 19%. In 2020 this percentage was 18%, in 2019 and 2018% it reached 17%, while in 2012 it barely reached 14%.

Denmark is the champion

According to data released by Eurostat, the steady growth of e-commerce sales across Europe was boosted by the pandemic and travel restrictions. The same data show that Denmark is the country with the highest percentage of companies that make online sales (at least 1% of their total turnover) with 38%.

Ireland and Sweden are in second place, with 34% of Irish and Swedish companies making more than 1% of total online turnover in 2021.

Lithuania, Belgium and Croatia follow in the same list with 32%, 31% and 30% respectively. At the other end of the scale are Luxembourg and Bulgaria, where only 9% and 10% of companies, respectively, made in 2021 more than 1% of their total turnover through digital channels.

Belgium and Finland recorded the largest increase in online sales in 2021 (online sales of at least 1% of their total turnover) in 2021, up 5 percentage points to 31% and 24% respectively. By contrast, Romania and the Czech Republic saw the largest decline in relative percentages in 2021.