As domestic markets mature and competition intensifies, retailers are increasingly looking beyond their home borders for growth. Cross-border e-commerce is no longer reserved for enterprise brands with unlimited budgets. It has become a viable and strategic expansion path for retailers of all sizes. In fact, global retail e-commerce sales are forecast to reach $6.8 trillion by 2028, accounting for 24 percent of total retail sales. For retailers seeking new revenue streams, diversified customer bases, and long-term resilience, the opportunity is clear.

Imagine this: you’re a retail executive enjoying a steady partnership with a major parcel carrier, when suddenly the ground shifts beneath your feet. In 2026, that’s not a hypothetical scenario, it’s exactly what’s happening in the delivery world. UPS is dramatically cutting the volume of Amazon packages it carries, FedEx is overhauling its network and even delivering on Sundays, and upstart regional carriers like OnTrac and Veho are racing to fill gaps with new services. It’s a wake-up call for European merchants: the era of relying on a single carrier is over. In a volatile market, ​​ multi‑carrier contingency isn’t just a cost hack, it’s a strategic necessity for resilience and growth.

Fashion retailers are entering a race. 2026 won’t just define the next 12 months of business, but the next decade. If your strategy isn’t strong enough, you may never catch up. This is your comprehensive guide to bring the future into focus, with exclusive insights from retail and tech powerhouses like Zalando and Algolia, ecommerce strategist like Rick Watson as well as 5,000 shoppers surveyed across the US, UK, Germany, and Asia.

Online marketplace shoppers are still more likely to being their purchase journey at a marketplace than any other channel, but the extent to which that’s the case appears to have lessened from last year as the journey becomes more fragmented, according to a report from ChannelEngine.

According to the survey of 4,500 online marketplace shoppers across the US, UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, 37% share tend to go first to online marketplaces when looking to purchase a product online, while 23% turn to search engines first, 11% to brand websites, and 9% to social media.

With new networks dividing attention and unpredictable algorithm shifts impacting who sees what where, marketing teams struggle to reach and engage their target audience on social media. Marketers need deeper consumer insights to make the best use of their time and talent. Without them, brands risk over-investing in the wrong places with the wrong content, while leaving room for competitors to swoop in.

Based on insights from 4,500 marketplace shoppers across the US, UK, Germany, France, and the Netherlands, this report reveals how trust, value, and transparency are now shaping the marketplace shopping experience.

Shopping journeys are broader, not linear

Shoppers no longer move from one channel to one checkout. They discover on marketplaces, validate on social platforms, compare across borders, and increasingly use AI to reduce effort. This report connects those touchpoints into a single, end-to-end view of how decisions are actually made.

As part of the EU’s measures to support consumers contracting with online retailers, it has introduced requirements that retailers make it easier for consumers to withdraw from online contracts, by providing clearer (and well signposted) means of withdrawal online. Despite its name, Directive (EU) 2023/2673 as regards financial services contracts concluded at a distance contains important new rules for all online consumer contracts as it amends an important directive on consumer rights (Directive (EU) 2011/83).  Online retailers (whether based in the EU or based outside the EU but targeting the EU market) will therefore need to adjust their online contracting processes and ensure they have appropriate online architecture in place to permit consumers to withdraw from a contract in the manner the directive requires. France has now implemented the changes required into French national law, but all EU Member States need to follow suit. Online retailers should be working to implement these new requirements before 19 June 2026.

A growing share of EU online shopping is flowing to marketplaces based outside the European Union. Greece has emerged as an extreme example of this shift. Recent survey data shows that roughly 80 percent of Greek consumers have purchased from at least one non-EU e-commerce platform, with Temu and Shein standing out as the most frequently mentioned marketplaces.

This development is more than a short-term consumer trend. It reflects bigger structural changes in European e-commerce, affecting price expectations, competitive dynamics, logistics, and regulatory priorities across the EU.