Shopify dominates new European eCommerce launches

In seven major European markets, 148,044 new eCommerce stores launched on Shopify in 2025. WooCommerce picked up 99,140. PrestaShop got 9,747.

Every market in the dataset is tilting toward Shopify for new launches, with the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, 54% of all new stores chose Shopify. In France, 49%. In Spain, 41%.

But store counts don't tell the whole story. ShopRank analysed what kinds of stores are being created — by category, domain choice, and site profile — to understand whether Shopify is replacing European e-commerce infrastructure or growing something new alongside it.

Different platforms, different businesses

The data's most revealing layer is what each platform's new stores actually look like.

Shopify skews DTC lifestyle. 52% of new Shopify stores in Europe sell clothing, accessories, or health and beauty products. Just 6.4% sell food and beverages, and 5.1% home and garden. The brands choosing to launching on Shopify are digitally native and often new entrants that may not have existed without Shopify's low barrier to launch.

WooCommerce skews traditional and local. Its category spread is broader: food and beverages (10.1%), home and garden (7.4%), furniture (6.4%), vehicles and parts (4.6%). These are operational businesses — a French cheese shop, a German hardware supplier, a Polish auto parts dealer — choosing self-hosted infrastructure with local integrations.

PrestaShop bridges both worlds. It's 31% clothing but also 11% home and garden, double Shopify's share. The profile is Southern European clothing boutiques alongside hardware stores and food shops — local, operational businesses on a platform built for them.

Domain choice reinforces the pattern. 48% of new Shopify stores use .com domains; another 8% use .store or .shop. PrestaShop is the opposite: 61% of its new stores use country-code TLDs (.de, .fr, .pl), with just 28% on .com. WooCommerce sits between the two.

Two dynamics, not one

What the data describes isn't a single trend. It's two running in parallel.

The first: new DTC brands choose Shopify. A founder in Barcelona launching a clothing line picks .com and Shopify. The ecosystem — apps, templates, Shopify Payments — makes it easy enough to try. Many of these are net-new stores that might never have launched on PrestaShop or WooCommerce. Many also won't survive. ShopRank's survival data shows new stores churn at two to three times the rate of established ones.

The second: traditional business shifting to eCommerce continues on WooCommerce and PrestaShop. Think: the cheese shop in Lyon, the auto parts dealer in Düsseldorf, the hardware store in Kraków. PrestaShop's new-store share is down in every market, but its existing stores are exactly the kind of local, operational businesses that tend to stick around.

What it means for European commerce

Shopify has clearly won the top of the funnel for new DTC launches. If you're starting a digitally native brand in Europe, it's the default.

Europe is consolidating around Shopify for new entrants while maintaining a long tail of local platforms for traditional businesses. Whether that represents healthy competition or premature consolidation depends on how many of those 148,000 new stores become lasting businesses — or churn out within a year.

Methodology

Analysis based on ShopRank's continuous scan of 300M+ domains across seven European markets. Full methodology available at shoprank.com/methodology.