European shoppers buying fashion and beauty online are mostly buying from outside their own country. Cross-Border Commerce Europe's fifth annual TOP 500 ranking puts the sector's leading online retailers at EUR 120bn of total online turnover in 2025, of which roughly EUR 79bn, about 66 per cent, was cross-border. The ranking covers 30 European markets, the EU27 plus the UK, Switzerland and Norway.

Marketplaces contributed EUR 31bn of gross merchandise value, around 39 per cent of that cross-border volume. The wider European fashion, beauty and luxury market, online and offline together, is put at EUR 635bn, with the online segment forecast to grow 7 per cent to approximately EUR 198bn in 2026.

Strip away the size of the numbers and one thing is left. European consumers in this category do not expect to buy locally, and they are not waiting for a brand to have a shop in their country. That is unusually good news for a US brand, because the behaviour that has to exist for expansion to work already exists. Nobody has to be persuaded to try a foreign brand.

What the figure does not mean is that shipping from a US warehouse counts as cross-border in the same sense. Most of this volume moves between European countries, inside a single customs area, with local returns, local languages and local delivery expectations attached. A German shopper buying from a French retailer gets their order in two days with a free return label. The same shopper buying from a US brand gets a customs charge and a fortnight of waiting. Both are cross-border. They are not the same product experience.

The demand is proven. The question is only which side of the customs line you serve it from.

• Use the EUR 79bn figure as evidence of appetite, not as a total addressable market for any one brand.
• Plan for marketplace channels, which carry roughly 39 per cent of this cross-border volume.
• Compare your delivery and returns experience against a European competitor selling into the same market.
• Remember the ranking covers 30 markets including the UK, Switzerland and Norway, which sit outside the EU customs area.

Expandly puts beauty and fashion brands on the inside of that customs line, with compliance, listings and local fulfilment handled together.