eCommerce in Greece in 2026: Why Skroutz Is Not a Strategy

Greek eCommerce has crossed a threshold. From €29.4 billion in 2024 to €36.1 billion in 2025, the market keeps climbing. If you run an online store, those numbers sound promising.

But there's a picture the numbers don't show: most Greek e-shops have built their business on rented ground. They depend on Skroutz for sales and Google Ads for traffic, and if either one changes its rules, there's nothing to fall back on.

This article explains why that's the biggest risk facing a Greek e-shop today, and what you can actually do about it.

By 2026, nearly 7 in 10 Greek internet users shop online. And 84.4% say they prefer buying from Greek e-shops, up from just 49% in 2023. The demand is clearly there.

The problem is that demand attracts pressure. The 2026 buyer expects fast delivery, a mobile experience that works (65% of purchases happen on smartphones), and genuine post-sale support. Research from GR.EC.A in partnership with AUEB's ELTRUN lab shows that 65% of shoppers consider after-sale service a key factor in whether they return.

If you're not delivering on those expectations, you're not just losing sales. You're losing the customers you already paid to acquire.

Skroutz generated $1.46 billion in revenue in 2024 and is the dominant force in Greek eCommerce. It's easy to see why so many stores lean on it. You get instant access to a massive pool of buyers without having to build your own traffic from scratch.

But Skroutz makes money on price comparison. The buyer compares, and buys from whoever is cheapest. If you're winning customers purely on price, you haven't won a customer. You've won a transaction.

Skroutz can be one of your channels. It can't be your strategy.

The number is telling. Research presented at the Balkan eCommerce Summit shows that 56.6% of Greek online stores invest less than €1,000 per month in content creation. At the same time, 41.5% rely primarily on Google Ads as their main sales channel.

Which means: you're paying to rent traffic every month, but building nothing that stays. SEO (organic search visibility) works the opposite way. It requires upfront investment and takes time, but it keeps working after you stop paying.

For an e-shop, SEO is the only marketing investment that becomes an asset. Well-optimised category pages, product pages that answer real buyer questions, and articles targeting search intent keep generating clicks without a per-click charge.

54.7% of Greek e-shops have no loyalty programme in place. That would be less striking if those same stores didn't report strong repeat customer bases: 52.8% say they already have customers who return regularly.

So you have returning customers. You're just not doing anything to accelerate that.

A loyalty mechanic doesn't need to be complex. A post-purchase email sequence (thank you, follow-up, a discount offer 30 days later), a simple points programme through WooCommerce or Shopify, or even a delivery check-in email can shift your repeat purchase rate meaningfully. The goal is to turn a one-time buyer into someone who comes back without you having to re-acquire them from scratch.

Not all categories are growing at the same speed. Food and beverages holds the largest share at 27.2% of the Greek eCommerce market, but the clearest entry opportunities sit elsewhere.

Beauty and personal care is climbing at a 12.3% CAGR through 2030. Sportswear, home goods, and pet products are also on strong upward trajectories. What these categories share: buyers don't decide on price alone, which means you have room to build something beyond the lowest margin.

Worth noting too: 62% of Greek buyers still don't trust purchases made directly through social media. Social platforms work best for discovery. Your e-shop is where the transaction should happen. That combination, social for awareness and your own store for the sale, remains the most reliable path.

You don't need to change everything at once. But there are three things worth addressing immediately.

First: audit your dependency. What percentage of your revenue comes from Skroutz? From paid ads? If either gets cut off, what's left? That answer tells you exactly where you're exposed.

Second: start SEO today. Even without an agency, you can optimise your category pages, fix meta titles and descriptions, and start creating content around the questions your buyers are actually searching for. Results take time, which is precisely the point: the sooner you start, the sooner the compounding begins.

Third: put something in place for retention. A simple post-purchase email sequence through Klaviyo or Mailchimp (or even WooCommerce's built-in tools) can materially improve your repeat purchase rate. Start simple and build from there.

The 2026 buyer doesn't need convincing that online shopping is safe. They know what they want, they know where to look, and they're ready to buy from you if you give them a good reason.

That reason isn't the lowest price. It's trust, a purchase experience that actually works, and the sense that they're buying from a business that knows what it's doing. Those things are built with brand, content, and service. Not with the next coupon.

If you want to see where your e-shop stands right now and what's worth changing first, we can work through it together.