Online shopping 2025: Romanians buy, few firms sell online

In short: more and more Romanians buy online, but few Romanian companies sell online. Eurostat data published in 2026 show that 63.6% of internet users in Romania bought online in 2025, while only 14.6% of companies with at least 10 employees had e-commerce sales, the lowest share in the EU. In Hungary both indicators are higher, but a gap between demand and supply exists there too.

How many Romanians and Hungarians buy online?

Eurostat measures each year the share of internet users aged 16–74 who bought goods or services online in the previous 12 months. The figures, as of October 2026:

• Romania: 54.9% in 2023, 59.7% in 2024, 63.6% in 2025.
• Hungary: 75.9% in 2023, 78.9% in 2024, 72.4% in 2025.
• EU average: 75.4% in 2023, 76.6% in 2024, 77.8% in 2025.

Romania remains below the European average, third from the bottom in the EU in 2025, after Bulgaria (57.0%) and Italy (61.7%). But growth is fast: in 2015 only 17.6% of Romanian internet users had bought online, a rise of 46 percentage points in ten years. Internet access is no longer the barrier: 94.8% of Romanians aged 16–74 used the internet in the previous 12 months (2025), above the EU average of 94.5%.

In Hungary the share fell in 2025 compared with 2024, from 78.9% to 72.4%. The Eurostat dataset does not explain the drop or flag it as a break in series. We draw no conclusions from a single year; it is worth watching at the next update.

How many companies sell online?

On the supply side, Eurostat publishes each year the share of companies with at least 10 employees (excluding the financial sector) that had e-commerce sales. The 2025 survey refers to sales in 2024:

• Companies with e-commerce sales: Romania 14.6%, Hungary 21.3%, EU average 23.6%.
• Companies with web sales (website, app or marketplace): Romania 13.0%, Hungary 19.0%, EU average 20.7%.
• Companies with web sales to consumers (B2C): Romania 12.1%, Hungary 16.2%, EU average 17.2%.
• Companies selling via online marketplaces: Romania 5.5%, Hungary 7.8%, EU average 9.3%.

Romania has the lowest share of companies with e-commerce sales in the EU, only just below Luxembourg (14.7%). Hungary is close to the European average for B2C web sales, but below it for marketplace sales.

How should you read these figures?

Three caveats before you use the data in a presentation or a plan. The buyer indicator covers people aged 16–74 who used the internet in the past year; measured against the whole age group, Romania's 2025 share is 60.3%. The company data cover only businesses with at least 10 employees, excluding the financial sector, so micro-enterprises are not included. And the 2025 survey describes sales in 2024, not 2025.

How big is the Romanian online market?

Eurostat does not publish market value per country in these datasets. An industry estimate comes from the Gomag eCommerce Pulse 2026 report, covered by the business press in March 2026: Romania's online market for physical products exceeded €8 billion in 2025, growing by roughly 7–8% on 2024, and could exceed €8.7 billion in 2026. The same report estimates e-commerce at only about 8.5% of total retail. These are estimates from a market player, not official statistics.

What does it mean for your business?

Our reading: in Romania, online demand has grown faster than the number of companies selling online. That does not make selling online easy; it means that in many categories the customer is already there, while organised local competition on the channel is still relatively thin. For a company in Hungary the market is more mature, so differentiation comes less from simply being online and more from the offer, conversion and acquisition efficiency.

In both markets the data say the same thing: internet access is rarely the problem. The problem is whether the store or the form turns a visit into an order, and whether you know where that order came from. A concrete example is the Hungarian online store we worked with: at the start, Google Ads was correctly tracking less than 10% of conversions, and B2C and B2B were not separated.

What to do now: checklist

If you already sell online or plan to start:

1. Check that you measure orders and leads correctly per channel before increasing budget. See marketing measurement.
2. Look at your site's conversion rate on mobile and desktop, and at the steps where people drop off. See conversion optimisation.
3. Separate consumers (B2C) from business customers (B2B): different messages, pages and KPIs.
4. If you do not sell online yet, test demand with one product or category, a limited budget and decision criteria set in advance.
5. If you are considering expansion between Romania and Hungary, start from the difference in market maturity. See go-to-market.
6. Recheck the Eurostat figures at the next update: those above are valid as of October 2026.