The pandemic has brought about a change in many aspects of daily life, from the way of living to shopping habits. In 2020, eCommerce experienced extraordinary growth, with sky-high website creation statistics and an unprecedented business boom. Only in Europe. While in the rest of the world it reached a growth of 149% in the same period, according to SiteGround, which has more than two and a half million web pages hosted.

The confinement modified many habits of society, among them it opened the door to electronic commerce and this trend continued in 2021, although to a lesser extent. Therefore, when comparing 2020 and 2021, a drop in statistics is observed, with a 29.5% decrease in website creation in Europe, and 42.7% worldwide, compared to 2020. Even so, the growth compared to pre-pandemic period is still higher than 100% in both cases.

Highest growth in Europe
According to the data offered by SiteGround, the creation of electronic commerce in Europe shows a remarkable growth, greater than in the rest of the world. When comparing 2019 and 2021, an increase of 126.8% in the number of European eCommerce is observed.

Taking these figures into account, the drop in the creation of new eCommerce was less dramatic in Europe than in the rest of the world. In fact, in 2021, 38% of active eCommerce hosted on SiteGround were European, up from 31% in 2020, an increase of 22.5% year-on-year.

In this framework, the role of SMEs in Spain is fundamental. They account for more than 95% of the Spanish business fabric and proof of this is this growth in eCommerce. After more than two years since the outbreak of the pandemic, the number of SMEs in Spain has recovered, mainly driven by electronic commerce.

“The possibilities offered by electronic commerce have become increasingly important. They have no geographical limit, they are operational 24 hours a day, they offer comfort and payment flexibility to customers, and they can offer a greater number of products”, comments José Ramón Padrón, Country Manager of SiteGround in Spain.