Top Online Marketplaces by Country (2026): Who Leads Where, and What It Means for Sellers

"Sell on marketplaces" is half an instruction. Which marketplace depends entirely on where your customer lives. The platform that reaches nine in ten shoppers in one country may barely exist next door, and each leader has its own commission structure, fulfilment programme, language and seller rules.

This is the reference page for the Marketplaces by Country section of the Kurums E-Commerce pillar. It gives the global ranking, a country table, and a reading of each region for sellers. Regional deep dives follow in Europe's marketplaces and Türkiye's marketplaces.

Which are the largest online marketplaces in the world?

Measured by gross merchandise value in 2025, the largest single platform is Amazon at about US$847 billion, followed by Pinduoduo at about US$780 billion and Douyin at about US$656 billion, according to ECDB. Taobao, Tmall and JD.com follow, each above US$500 billion. Only two of the top ten, Amazon and Walmart, are Western.

Two notes on reading this ranking. First, GMV is the value of goods sold through the platform, not the company's revenue; the platform keeps only its commission, advertising and service income. Second, grouping by owner changes the order. ECDB's company-level ranking puts Alibaba first at a combined US$1.26 trillion, PDD Holdings (Pinduoduo and Temu) second at US$873 billion and Amazon third at about US$852 billion.

For a seller, the lesson is geographic. Amazon's volume is concentrated: ECDB notes that 86% of it comes from seven markets. Outside those, a different company owns the shopper.

Which marketplace leads in each country?

The table below combines DHL's 2026 E-Commerce Trends Report (shoppers' most-used marketplace, as published by Lengow) with ECDB and trade-press rankings for countries DHL did not cover. Where a percentage is shown, it is the share of surveyed online shoppers who use that platform.

"n/a" means the country was not in the DHL shopper survey as published; the leader shown comes from ECDB or regional reporting. Survey reach is not market share: a shopper can use several platforms, and usage is not the same as spending. India is a good example. Amazon tops the usage survey, while Walmart-owned Flipkart is widely reported as the larger platform by sales.

How should sellers read North America and Europe?

North America is the simplest region to plan: Amazon reaches about 85% of US and 89% of Canadian online shoppers, and it is the default first listing. The work is in the economics. Amazon's US Professional plan costs US$39.99 a month and the referral fee is 15% in most categories; with fulfilment and advertising, sellers commonly report total costs of 30 to 45% of the selling price. Walmart Marketplace and eBay are the usual second listings, and Etsy for handmade and design-led goods.

Europe looks like Amazon's continent on a map and behaves like a federation. Amazon leads in Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Austria. It does not lead in the Netherlands (bol, 92%), Poland (Allegro, 89%), the Czech Republic (Alza, 67%), Switzerland (Digitec Galaxus, 60%) or Türkiye (Trendyol, 89%). Fashion has its own venue in Zalando, and cross-border platforms have grown fast: ECDB's ranking of Europe's largest online retailers by 2025 GMV places AliExpress, Temu and Shein in the top ten, and Temu was the shoppers' first choice in Portugal in the DHL survey.

European selling also carries regulatory overhead that marketplaces only partly absorb: VAT through the One-Stop Shop, packaging and electronics take-back registration in several countries, and product safety rules that require a responsible person in the EU. The detail is in Europe's marketplaces: a seller's guide. For the competitive backdrop, read bol and Coolblue versus Amazon, Temu and Shein.

How is Asia different?

Asia is where marketplaces are largest and least like Amazon. In China, Taobao, Tmall, Pinduoduo, Douyin and JD.com each sell more than US$500 billion a year, shopping is woven into video and chat, and foreign brands usually enter through cross-border programmes such as Tmall Global with a local partner.

Our company stories explain the logic of each: Alibaba vs Pinduoduo, JD.com and logistics, and how live commerce works.

Southeast Asia is Shopee's region. The DHL survey shows it used by 90% of online shoppers in Thailand and 96% in Malaysia, and it leads across Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, with Lazada and TikTok Shop as challengers. The markets are mobile-first, baskets are small, and free-shipping vouchers and flash sales are part of the platform's design.

India is a three-way contest among Amazon, Flipkart and the low-price platform Meesho, with strong vertical players in fashion and beauty. See Flipkart vs Amazon.

Japan has long been split among Amazon Japan, Rakuten Ichiba and Yahoo! Shopping. Rakuten's shop-in-shop model, where each merchant runs a branded storefront inside the mall, is described in Rakuten: the anti-Amazon marketplace. South Korea is led by Coupang, built on its own same-day delivery network.

What about Latin America, the Middle East and Africa?

Latin America is Mercado Libre's home ground. In Argentina, 93% of online shoppers and 98% of businesses in the DHL survey use it. Its advantage is infrastructure it built itself: the Mercado Pago payment system and a logistics network, in markets where banking and delivery were weak. Brazil is the contested market: Shopee led among shoppers (84%) while Mercado Libre led among businesses (86%), and ECDB notes that Shopee's parent now draws nearly a quarter of its GMV from Brazil. Our story on Mercado Livre covers the model.

The Gulf is a two-horse race between Amazon and noon, with Shein remarkably strong among shoppers in Saudi Arabia (81%). Purchasing power is high, cash on delivery persists, and beauty, fragrance and fashion over-index.

Africa is many markets, not one. South Africa is the most mature, led by Takealot (88%), with Amazon a recent entrant. Nigeria is led by Jumia (84%), with Konga as the home-grown rival profiled in our Konga story. Payment and last-mile delivery remain the binding constraints.

How do you choose which marketplaces to sell on?

Choose the leader in the country where you can deliver quickly and legally, then expand one step at a time. Rank candidates on five questions rather than on size.

Then sequence. A workable order for most brands is: the leading marketplace at home; your own store, for margin and repeat orders, as argued in marketplace vs own store vs social commerce; the same marketplace's sister sites in neighbouring countries; and only then a new platform in a new region. Before each step, run the checks in market metrics to review before entering a country.

What changed for cross-border marketplace sellers in 2026?

The economics of shipping single low-value parcels across borders worsened. The US ended duty-free entry for parcels under US$800 in August 2025. The EU ended its €150 duty exemption on 1 July 2026 with a flat €3 duty per item category, after low-value parcel volumes reached about 4.6 billion in 2024.

The platforms most exposed are the factory-direct ones, covered in Pinduoduo and Temu, Shein and Temu vs Amazon. Their response has been to hold more stock in destination countries and to recruit local sellers, which opens their marketplaces to domestic merchants in Europe and the Americas. For a local seller, that is a new channel; for a cross-border seller, it is a reason to move inventory closer to the customer.

A second shift is discovery. AI shopping assistants are beginning to sit between shoppers and marketplaces, and platforms are deciding whether to let them in; we track that in adapting your business for agentic commerce.

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