27 Best eCommerce Websites to Start Your Online Business

eCommerce has a long history, beginning in 1994 when the first online transaction occurred. Since then, the eCommerce market has been growing significantly and has become a mass and constantly developing market in recent days. 

Global eCommerce sales have been growing significantly from 1336 billion USD in 2014 to 4280 billion USD in 2020 and can keep growing to over 6000 billion USD in 2024. That is why Jean-Paul Ago, CEO of L’Oreal, said that “E-commerce isn’t the cherry on the cake; it’s the new cake.” As a promising and highly potential market, the eCommerce market now has around 12-24 million sites worldwide.

Want to know about the best eCommerce websites, their stories, and what makes them successful? This article is written for you. Here we will introduce the 27 top eCommerce sites and some fun facts about them.

27 Best eCommerce Websites in 2022

1. Amazon – the Biggest eCommerce Site in the US

Annual revenue: $386.064B (2020)

Visits: 3.24 billion

Headquarters: Seattle, Washington, U.S.

Established year: 5 July 1994

Founder: Jeff Bezos

Hardly is there any online seller or shopper in the world not know about the best website for selling products: Amazon. It offers anything you need, from physical products like electronic devices, clothes, and beauty products to digital products like Kindle, Alexa, Amazon Drive, Amazon Studios, etc.

Founded in 1994, Amazon became one of the largest eCommerce sites a few years later. In 2015, it replaced Walmart as the most profitable retailer in the United States in market capitalization. Since then, the company has kept growing and become the top eCommerce site in the world with some significant and outstanding achievements:

• Amazon has 9.7 million retailers globally, with 1.9 million selling on the platform.
• Their sales revenue grew significantly from over 6 billion USD in 2004 to nearly 400 billion USD in 2020.
• The record shows that Amazon generates 4722$ per second, 283000$ per minute, and more than $17 million per hour.

Amazon is considered the best website for selling products. Many people have changed their lives and earned a massive amount of money thanks to selling products on Amazon.

Furthermore, despite being on the list of the best eCommerce websites, Amazon has some interesting facts that not all users know.

For instance, did you know the founder of Amazon launched one of the best eCommerce websites in his garage? Or did you know that Jeff Bezos first wanted to name the company “Cadabra,” which is short for the magic expression “abracadabra”?

However, he had to change the name since “Cadabra” was said to be familiar with the word “cadaver”, which means dead body. Eventually, Jeff settled down with the name “Amazon”, which implies that the selection of their products is vast and expansive, like the Amazon river, the world’s largest river.

See this video for more things you didn’t know about Amazon:

2. Jingdong – Amazon of China

Revenue: RMB745.8 billion (US$114.3 billion) in 2020

Visits: 173.50 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Beijing, China

Established year: 6 June 1998 

Founder: Liu Qiangdong

JD.com, also known as Jingdong, is China’s 2nd largest B2C eCommerce website. People usually compare this company to Amazon for their similarity in popularity and operation system.

The company was founded in 1998 as a shopfront called Jingdong. After just five years, in 2003, Liu Qiangdong established 12 other stores in Shenyang, Beijing, and Shanghai. With such incredible success, the company eventually went online in 2004. It has become one of the best eCommerce websites in the world.

Jingdong started as a magneto-optical store but has expanded since its products now include almost everything you need, such as computers, phones, clothes, baby products, etc., just like Amazon.

After 20 years, with their authentic and high-quality products, JD.com has grown from a small store to one of the top Chinese eCommerce websites, with some significant achieve:

• Generated annual revenue of RMB576.89 billion in 2019 to RMB745.8 billion in 2020
• Reached 417 million users in 2020
• The world’s first eCommerce site offering warehousing, B2B, and crowdsourcing logistics
• The first Chinese company to get on the Fortune 500 Company list
• Had 250,000 products and 650 warehouses in 2019

Here are some fun facts about one of the best eCommerce websites. From 2007 to 2013, the domain name of the company was 360buy.com. However, the owner decided to change its name to JD.com eventually. This is because “JD” is shorter, more easily recognized, and more friendly to Chinese customers than “360buy” is.

Furthermore, the company also does an excellent job in the logistics field. Jingdong Logistics, a subsidiary of JD, received an investment of 2.5 billion dollars.

3. Alibaba – from a small apartment to a worldwide eCommerce giant

Revenue: $72 billion (2020)

Visits: 101.88 million (in April 2021)

Headquarter: Beijing, China

Established year: 1999

Founder: Jack Ma

If we ask people from other countries to name one of the best eCommerce websites in China, most of them would surely say “Alibaba”. Alibaba Group is among the world’s top eCommerce websites. Its marketplace platforms provide B2B, B2C, and C2C sales services.

You can find various companies, suppliers, and sellers worldwide in different aspects.

Jack Ma founded Alibaba with his 17 friends and students in his apartment. By then, the company had received an investment of $25 million, which is an impressive figure for a newly established business. 

After 22 years, Alibaba has been growing from an idea in a small apartment to one of the best eCommerce websites in the world. Some admirable achievements of the company include:

• Net revenue increased from $1.04 billion in 2010 to $72 billion in 2020.
• Having over 900 million active mobile users in the last quarter of 2020.
• Having several subsidiaries that are also extremely successful in sales. Taobao had 666 million mobile monthly active users in 2018 and generated general merchandise sales of $853 billion in 2019.

There are some interesting facts about the website and its owner that not many people know. For instance, Jack Ma is famous as an inspiring and humorous public speaker, but do you know that he once held a speech in 2000 with only three audiences? 

It’s also interesting to know that Taobao, one of Alibaba’s most popular subsidiaries, was a top-secret project when it was launched. Not many people know this, but Jack came up with the Alibaba name when he was in a coffee shop. The name was inspired by the main character in the Middle Eastern folk-tale collection One Thousand and One Nights.

If you’re interested in the full story of how Alibaba became successful, watch this video:

4. Suning.com – Chinese eCommerce Website for Asian People

Revenue: $40.1 billion (2020)

Visitors: 10.35 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Nanjing, China

Established year: 1996

Founder: Zhang Jindong

Suning.com is not as well-known in the Western market as Alibaba and JD, but it is also among the top eCommerce sites in China. The company offers a wide range of products, such as clothes, cars, baby products, etc., but their focus is on electronic devices like mobile phones, computers, etc.

Suning.com started as an air-conditioner retail store. It started going online in 2009. Suning has progressed from “+ Internet” to “Internet +” to “Smart Shopping,” completing its own Internet transition and developing a series of retail innovation models that defy market theory. It has been stated that the brand value of Suning.com now is 6 times higher than in 2009.

As one of the best eCommerce websites in China, Suning.com has had many admirable achievements since its establishment:

• Got RMB 244.96 billion (36.479 billion USD) in operating income in 2018, up 30.35% from this year; and RMB 336 billion (50.16 billion USD) in sales, up 38.39%
• Achieved 80% stake in the Chinese division of Carrefour
• Reached 357 million registered users in 2018

Did you know before going on the list of top Chinese eCommerce sites, Suning.com had its name changed 4 times? It was changed from Suning Domestic Appliance (Group) Co., Lt. to Suning Appliance Chain Store (Group) Co., Ltd in 2000, and then to Suning Appliance Co., Ltd in 2005, Suning Commerce Group Co., Ltd in 2013, and eventually Suning.com Co., Ltd in 2018.

5. Meituan – the Powerful Chinese “Super App”

Revenue: 257.562 billion RMB (2020)

Visits: 10.35 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Nanjing, China

Established year: 2009

Founder: Wang Xing

Meituan is a Chinese local life service platform dominating China’s eCommerce and service economy. It offers customers almost every service they need, from hotel booking and movie tickets to restaurant reviewing, voucher selling, and many other leisure services, with food delivery as their primary focus.

This company might not be among the worldwide popular eCommerce sites, but still on the list of top eCommerce websites.

Meituan was founded in 2009 and reached a user number of 200 million in 2015, just 6 years after its establishment. That same year, Meituan merged with Dazhong Dianping, and its name was changed to  “Meituan-Dianping”. Although it was changed back to “Meituan” last year, the website dianping.com is still used for customer reviews and group buying.

After 12 years, Meituan has become one of the best eCommerce websites in China with some impressive achievements:

• Total sales rose 17.7% from RMB97.5 billion in 2019 to RMB114.8 billion in 2020
• The gross transaction value of their food delivery was RMB488.9 billion in 2020, an increase of 24.5% from the last year.
• Have an impressive transaction rate per user at 26 transactions a year (this figure of Airbnb is 0.5 transactions)

Want to hear some random trivia about Meituan? Their food delivery segment dominates and takes up 80% of their income. They are so concentrated in the food segment that many people think of Meituan as a food delivery company and don’t know that they also have other services.

The name Meituan may sound unfamiliar to Western customers, but that doesn’t mean that the company only has the market in China. Although many doubt the possibility of Meituan going international, Dinaping currently offers services in many other countries.

Want to know more about how Meituan works? Watch this video:

6. Wayfair – the Largest Online Home Goods Retailer

Revenue: $14.145 billion (2020)

Visits: 125.82 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

Established year: 2002

Founder: Niraj Shah & Steve Conine

Wayfair is one of the best eCommerce websites in the furniture and home-good niche. The company offers 14 million items ranging from bedding stuff, rugs, and home furniture to outdoor games, hot tub, lighting, and many more, from more than 11,000 suppliers worldwide. 

The company has offices and warehouses worldwide and owns five home-good brands, including Wayfair, Joss & Main, AllModern, Birch Lane, and Perigold.

Wayfair was founded in 2002 by Niraj and Steve, who were dormmates and studied at the same university. One of the top eCommerce websites was based on a very tight budget in Steve’s spare bedroom. 

In the first year, Wayfair only operated within the US. However, in 2008, it went international and started its path to become a worldwide famous eCommerce company.

Until now, 19 years later, Wayfair has grown to become one of the best eCommerce websites with numerous awards and impressive achievements:

• Won 15 awards from Boston Business Journal, Boston Globe, Stevie Awards, etc.
• Earned $100 million in sales in 2006, only four years after establishing
• Sales revenue increased over 23 times in only eight years, from $601 million in 2012 to $14.145 billion in 2020
• Active customer numbers also increased significantly, from 2.09 million in 2013 to 31.19 million in 2020

Some random facts about Wayfair: on the first days of Wayfair, its name was CSN Stores, in which CSN is combined from the names of the two founders. During that same time, the company’s products only included media stands and storage furniture. Plus, it’s also interesting to know that all of the ideas that brought them billions of dollars were born in Niraj’s basement.

7. Otto Group – From a Small Shoe Retailer to an International Group

Revenue: 17.33 billion USD (2019-2020)

Visits: 95.9 thousand (April 2021)

Headquarters: Hamburg, Germany

Established year: 1949

Founder: Werner Otto

Otto Group is a mail-order company based in Hamburg, Germany. It is now operating in over twenty countries as one of the top eCommerce websites worldwide. The company started as an eCommerce company but also has grown into real estate and financial services.

It owns several subsidiaries, such as About You, an online fashion retailer founded in 2014, Crate & Barrel, an international home decor store founded in 1962, and many other brands.

Otto was founded in 1949 by Werner Otto in his 40s. By then, the company only had 3 employees and 28 pairs of shoes as their product line. Within only 10 years, it had grown to a business of 1,000 employees and a DM 100 million annual revenue. Otto became a group of companies in 1970 and went online in 1995.

After many years of stepping into the eCommerce industry, Otto Group has gradually become one of the best eCommerce websites and gained some admirable achievements:

• Sales revenue increased 5%, from $16.33 billion in 2017/2018 to $17.33 billion in 2019/2020
• Won numerous awards, such as the International German PR Award 2019, Hanse Globe Award 2017, Corporate Culture Award in the category “Shared Value” in 2018, and many other ones

A surprising fact about Otto Group: despite being among the top eCommerce sites in the world, the company did not make much profit. Throughout the years, their yield has never been higher than $700 million. That may sound like a huge amount of money, but compared to their revenue, it’s almost nothing. They even made a loss during the time 2014 – 2016.

8. Rakuten – From 13 Merchants to More Than 70 Services

Revenue: $13.29 billion (2020)

Visits: 2.81 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan

Established year: 1997

Founder: Hiroshi Mikitani

You may have never heard of Rakuten Group, but it is one of the biggest eCommerce companies in Japan, which owns numerous top Japanese eCommerce sites. You can Rakuten’s subsidiaries in many different niches, such as eCommerce, messaging app, food delivery, travel booking, online cash-back, and many more.

When founded in 1997, the company’s name was MDM, Inc. Three months later, in May 1997, Hiroshi launched his first online shopping platform, Rakuten Ichiba, with only six employees and 13 products on their website. Then, in 1999, MDM, Inc. changed its name to Rakuten, which means “optimism” in Japanese. 

After that, Rakuten Group started its path to become one of the best eCommerce websites in Japan. New services and businesses we launched almost every year. In 2010, the company started going international and invested in other markets like Canada, Austria, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, etc.

Throughout the years, Rakuten Group has grown from an eCommerce website with only 13 merchants to a global company with more than 70 subsidiaries and services with many significant achievements:

• Got the 27th place for World’s Most Innovative Companies 2017 in Forbes
• Operating in 29 countries and regions and reaching 1.2 billion people 
• Generating an annual revenue of $13.29 billion in 2020, an increase of 15.2% from $11.61 billion in 2019
• Their Rakuten eCommerce site has 2,300 stores, over 40,000 sellers, and 95 million pageviews 

If you’re interested in knowing more about Rakuten Group, you can follow their official youtube channel. There are various English videos with exciting content about the company and their employees working lives, such as this one:

9. eBay – eCommerce GiantWith a Humble Beginning

Revenue: $10.27 billion (2020)

Visits: 885.48 million (April 2020)

Headquarters: San Jose, California, U.S

Established year: 1995

Founder: Pierre Omidyar

When talking about eCommerce websites, many Western people would think of eBay, besides those who think of Amazon. This is because eBay is one of the best eCommerce sites globally and is well-known for its C2C (customer to customer) auction-style sales and “Buy It Now” shopping.

Shoppers can find a broad range of products, from home furniture, appliances, collectible arts, and clothes to electronic devices, vehicles, industrial equipment, etc.

Perre Omidyar, a computer programmer, founded eBay in his living room in 1995. By then, the company was known as AuctionWeb. 3 years later, in 1998, Perre established eBay, an international marketplace to serve the needs of buyers and sellers from around the world, with the help of his friends, Jeff Skoll and Meg Whitman.

Within three years of operating, eBay had nearly 30 staff, almost $5 million in early sales, and half a million visitors and customers. Pierre and Jeff became billionaires just seven months after eBay went public.

Until now, eBay has become one of the best eCommerce sites with thousands of employees and many other impressive achievements:

• Had 182 million users worldwide in 2019
• eBay app used by 34.9% of US mobile users
• Had 1.3 billion listings on their website in 2019
• Generated annual net revenue of $10.27 billion in 2020, an increase of 15.92% from $8.64 billion in 2019

And here’s some entertaining trivia about one of the top eCommerce sites. Did you know that the first product sold on AuctionWeb is a… broken laser pointer? It was bought at $14.83 by a collector of broken laser pointers. There have been a lot of strange items sold there. A Californian town named Bridgeville was even auctioned there twice!

10. Zalando – the Product of a Failure Turning Into a Huge Success

Revenue: $9.65 billion (2020)

Visits: 6.05 million (April 2020)

Headquarters: Berlin, Germany

Established year: October 2008

Founder: Robert Gentz, David Schneider

Many fashion lovers know about Zalando, one of Europe’s biggest online fashion item retailers. Zalando is among the best online shopping platforms in the fashion niche. They are famous for their various fashion and lifestyle products from over 2000 fashion brands “from high street to high end” to customers in 17 European countries. 

Zalando was founded in October 2008 by Robert Gentz and David Schneider with the money invested by Rocket Internet, a European company that builds and invests in eCommerce businesses. By then, the company only operated in Germany, and its only product line was footwear, inspired by the US online retailer Zappos.com.

Years later, Zalando started stepping into other markets like the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Italy, etc., expanding to sell all kinds of fashion items. Thanks to the perfect timing, the company made a breakthrough, got promoted on a series of TV ads as a household name, and generated a revenue of $181 million in 2010.

Over 12 years since establishment, Zalando has gradually become one of the best eCommerce websites for fashion items and got some significant success:

• Constantly increasing number of active customers year-on-year and reached 38.7 million in the last quarter in 2020
• Dramatically fast-growing annual revenue from $7.84 billion in 2019 to $9.65 billion in 2020

As famous and successful as Zalando is now, did you know that the company was founded during one of the hardest times in its founders’ lives? By then, their co-founders, Robert and David, were completely broke and had just returned to Germany after their failed project in Mexico. Zalando’s first products are only flip-flops!

11. Chewy – Online Pet Retailer That Beat Amazon

Revenue: $7.15 billion (2020)

Visits: 45.95 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Dania Beach, Florida, U.S.

Established year: 2011

Founder: Ryan Cohen & Michael Day

Chewy is a much younger company than the others on this list but has become one of the best eCommerce websites. It is an online retailer for pet food and other pet-related products in America, beating Amazon in the pet supply segment. 

When founded in 2011, the company was known under “Mr. Chewy”. This first year, they made an impressive annual revenue of $26 million but still made a loss. In 2017, the company sales made up 51% of online pet product sales in the US only six years later. In that same year, Chewy was acquired by PetSmart for $3.35 billion, which was the largest eCommerce acquisition ever.

During the ten years, Chewy has gradually grown to become one of the largest online retailers for pet products, with some significant achievements:

• Over 45,000 products from over 1600 different pet supply brands.
• Received the Stevie Award for Favorite Customer Service in Retail in both 2017 and 2018
• Annual revenue increased from $3.5 billion in 2018 to $7.15 billion in 2020

Some random trivia about the company: did you know that on the first days when Chewy’s just established, most of their employees were former employees of other top eCommerce sites, such as Amazon, Wayfair, PetSmart, etc., which may be one of the reasons the company got such impressive annual revenue in its first year.

Chewy outweighs many competitors because of its excellent customer service and highly customer-oriented operation. The company has over 1000 customer service reps for 24-hour telephone service and no automated answering system.

12. Coupang – the South Korean Amazon Founded by a Havard Dropout

Revenue: $12.34 billion (2020)

Visits: 65.5 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Seoul, South Korea

Established year: 2010

Founder: Bom Kim

Coupang is popular among European shoppers and South Korea’s biggest online retailer. Customers can find almost everything they need on its website, from toys to fashion items and home to office furniture. 

Furthermore, Coupang offers various services, including Rocket Delivery, overnight delivery service; Rocket Wow (similar to Amazon Prime), Rocket Fresh (food delivery service), Rocket Direct Purchasing of Foreign Goods, and many more.

The company started as a Groupon website. However, Bom Kim, its founder, realized that the Groupon business model could not last long. Therefore, Coupang was transitioned into an eCommerce company. Here started its way to become among the top eCommerce websites in Korea. Coupang has received $3.4 billion from big names like  SoftBank, Sequoia Capital, etc.

Coupang is considered one of the most fast-growing eCommerce companies and Amazon of South Korea for many reasons, mostly because of its impressive achievements:

• Sales revenue increased drastically from 6.33 billion USD in 2019 to $12.34 billion in 2020
• 99.3% of orders delivered within one day
• Got 3.3 million daily sales on average
• The estimated value at $9 billion

Did you know that Bom Kim, founder of Coupang, was a former student of Harvard? He quit his job to attend Harvard Business School as an ambitious entrepreneur. However, he dropped out about a year later and returned to Seoul to open Coupang.

His story is similar to the case of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, who had also dropped out of Havard to open their businesses and became billionaires afterward.

Interested in Coupang and its founder? Watch this video about Bom Kim:

13. Flipkart – Indian eCommerce giant owned by Walmart

Revenue: $4.8 billion (2020)

Visits: 176.93 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Established year: 2007

Founder: Sachin Bansal & Binny Bansal

All Indian people know about Flipkart, one of the biggest eCommerce companies in India. It is a primary competitor of Amazon’s Indian subsidiary, Snapdeal. The two companies are usually said to be “neck and neck” selling electronic devices and cell phones. Besides, Flipkart provides other products like fashion items, home furniture, travel tickets, etc.

Founded in 2007 by two former Amazon employees, Flipkart started as an online book retailer but soon expanded its product line to other kinds of products. In 2017, the company took up 39.5% of the eCommerce sector sales in India within ten years. In 2018, Walmart bought 77% of Flipkart’s stake, increasing the company’s valuation to nearly $20 billion.

Until now, the company has become one of the biggest online retailers in India. Both before and after being bought by Walmart, the company made some significant achievements:

• Raised a total of $3 billion in different funding rounds
• Generated $200 million in three Big Billion Day 2015 and $256 million in 2016
• Had their mobile app praised as the first app got 50 million users in India in 2016
• Revenue increased dramatically from nearly $1 billion to $6.1 billion in 2019, within five years

Want to hear some interesting facts about Flipkart? When reading the names of Flipkart’s co-founders, here’s one: many people thought they were brothers. However, the truth is they’re not. They just share the same last name. It is a surprising coincidence since not only do Sachin and Binny have the same last name, but they also both went to the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Furthermore, they both used to work at Amazon.

Interested in knowing more about Flipkart? Watch this youtube video:

14. Wildberries – Russia’s Biggest Online Retailer Founded on $700

Revenue: $3 billion (2020)

Visits: 154.45 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Moscow, Russia

Established year: 2004

Founder: Tatyana Bakalchuk

Wildberries is another good eCommerce website from Russia. The website operates in seven countries and provides a wide range of products, from cosmetics to food, shoes to apparel, and 37,000 brands worldwide.

Bakalchuk founded the company in her Moscow apartment in 2004. By then, she was 28 years old and on maternity leave. In the beginning, she traded and resold Quelle goods from the Otto Group and delivered each of the products sold to the buyers’ house independently. 

Her business made a breakthrough and expanded thanks to the financial crisis in 2008. That was when Adidas and other companies attempted to offload their unsold products, which initially worthed millions of euros, at a steep discount. Bakalchuk took advantage of this incident and had enough goods to sell for the next two years.

Within 17 years, from a small website, Wildberries has become one of the best eCommerce sites in Russia, with a wide range of products from over 15,000 brands worldwide. The company’s turnover in 2019 was $3 billion, an increase of 88% from the previous year, and an average of 750,000 orders a day.

Besides the dramatically fast growth of Wildberries, the story of its founder, Tatyana, could also wow you! Before starting the company, she was an English teacher and could hardly make ends meet based on her salary. Did you know that this billion-dollar company was founded on only.. $700, which is all of its founder’s saving money? 

Seventeen years later, not only has the company developed so well, but Tatyana’s life has also turned into a new page. From an English teacher struggling to earn a living, she has become a successful entrepreneur and the second wealthiest woman in Russia, with an estimated fortune of $1.1 billion.

15. ASOS – eCommerce Giant in the UK

Revenue: $4.6 billion (2020)

Visits: 79.21 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: London, England

Established year: 2000

Founder: Nick Robertson, Quentin Griffiths

ASOS is a global eCommerce retailer known for its cutting-edge fashion and patterns in menswear and womenswear. It offers a wide range of fashion items from over 850 brands worldwide, including its own, and ships to 237 countries.

ASOS was founded in 2000 under the name “AsScreenOnScreen”, meaning that it sold clothes with the same styles and designs as celebrities. The company’s tagline was “Buy what you see on film and TV”.

However, their goal was soon more than that, and the company’s name was shortened to “ASOS” a year after its establishment. Their official website since then has been www.asos.co.uk.

The company started taking several leaps in 2010 when it began to have foreign customers from the USA, France, and Germany. In 2013, ASOS expanded its product line, launched online stores for Russia and China, and established a new office in Birmingham. So here started the company’s path to become an eCommerce giant in the UK with some significant achievements:

• Revenue in the UK alone increased 17.9%, from $1.45 billion in 2019 to $1.72 billion in 2020
• Worldwide famous and had 61% of sales coming from abroad 
• Having 18 million active customers from 240 countries in the world

Did you know that a globally renowned and successful company like ASOS still occasionally makes some silly mistakes? In 2018, the company made a typo in their plastic bags, and no one realized it until 17,000 bags were printed. However, they were smart enough to notify the incident on Twitter and called those error bags “limited edition”.

16. Sea Limited – the Owner of Southeast Asian eCommerce Leading Factors

Revenue: $4.376 billion (2020)

Headquarters: Singapore

Established year: 2009

Founder: Forrest Li

Another candidate for the list of best eCommerce websites is Sea Limited. It is an eCommerce company offering online shopping, gaming, and payment platforms. Sea is headquartered in Singapore but expanded to other countries in the Southeast Asian area. Its subsidiaries include Shopee, Garena, and SeaMoney, three leading factors in the eCommerce, online game, and fintech industries.

Shopee, founded six years ago, is one of the biggest and most widely known eCommerce companies in Singapore and Asia. It operates and has websites in 9 countries: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brazil, and Mexico. 

In 2020, Shopee beat Lazada and Amazon in Singapore to become South East Asia’s most used eCommerce provider. The company’s visitor number in quarter 2 of 2020 was over 10.8 million, 26.95% higher than Lazada and 46% higher than Amazon at the same time.

Garena is the biggest game publisher and developer in South East Asia. Two of their biggest and most successful products are the worldwide famous online games League of Legends and Garena Free Fire. 

Owning three successful subsidiaries, Sea Limited is one of the largest internet companies in Asia and worldwide, with constantly increasing revenue. Its annual revenue in 2020 was $4.376 billion, rising 101.14% from $2.175 billion in 2019. Furthermore, the stock of Sea Limited is now one of the market’s best growth stories.

Interested in knowing more about the company? Watch this youtube video:

17. Pinduoduo – a Chinese Farmer-Friendly eCommerce Company

Revenue:  $9.118 billion (2020)

Visits: 241.53 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Shanghai, China

Established year: 2015

Founder: Colin Huang

With a massive population, China is famous for having a wide range of online shopping platforms for users, such as JD, Taobao, Meituan, and Pinduoduo. What makes Pinduoduo different is that its primary products are agricultural products. The company has created a platform that helps small-scale farmers connect directly with consumers.

Pinduoduo was founded in 2015. Its name means “Together, More Savings, More Fun.” This is related to the company’s group-buying function, which means that the more people join in a purchase, the lower the product price. This is one of the biggest appeals of Pinduoduo and what it’s famous for.

Only six years after its establishment, Pinduoduo has become the biggest online marketplace in China for farming products. It is considered the fastest growing eCommerce startup in China for some reasons:

• Reached the gross merchandise volume (GMD) of $15 billion in 2017, only two years after the establishment
• Got 643.4 million monthly active users in quarter 3 2020, higher than the annual active user number in 2019
• Having around 586,000 active merchants, with a year-on-year growth rate of 142%
• Been offering training for over 100,000 farmers since the first day
• Incredible revenue year-on-year growth rate. Their revenue in 2020 was $9.118 billion, a 110.59% increase from $4.33 billion in 2019.

Did you know that Pinduoduo has been a rival with other Chinese eCommerce companies like Alibaba and JD despite being established only six years ago? Admittedly, its annual revenue is not as high, but its number of active customers is neck and neck with that of the other two companies.

If you’re interested, watch this video for the incredible growth of Pinduoduo:

18. Shopify – From a Snowboard Online Store to a Billion-Dollar eCommerce Platform

Revenue: $2.929 billion (2020)

Visits: 57 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Ontario, Canada

Established year: 2006

Founder: Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, Scott Lake

Shopify is a Canadian multinational eCommerce company. It is famous as a proprietary e-commerce platform providing online retailers a wide range of services, including billing, marketing, delivery, etc. There have been thousands of online stores using its platform.

Like many other startups, Shopify was founded in 2006 from its owners’ problem. Tobias and Scott wanted to launch an online snowboard store but could not find any good tool. So Shopify was born as a user-friendly set of tools that retailers can use to build their online stores.

Since then, there have been hundreds of thousands of websites using Shopify. Some of them are worldwide famous now, such as Zanerobe, ColourPop Cosmetics, and PopSockets. Interested in knowing more? Read this article 50+ best Shopify landing pages we’ve seen (and why they work). Many online store owners have changed their lives and made a fortune from their Shopify landing pages. Read this article for 7 Shopify success stories.

Shopify is now one of the biggest eCommerce platforms in the world with some significant achievements:

• Revenue increased 85.63% from $1.578 billion in 2019 to $2.929 billion in 2020
• Third position in the top global eCommerce companies in terms of market share (10.98%)
• Net income in 2020 was $491.3 million, $3.98 per diluted share, while these figures in 2019 were $50 million and $0.43 per diluted share.

Here’s a random trivia about Shopify. Did you know that in the beginning, the company was not an eCommerce platform but a store? Tobias and Scott were programmers, but they quit their careers and opened an online snowboard store named Snowdevil. Daniel, also a programmer, joined the team later, and the three of them launched Shopify together.

19. Overstock.com – Online Home Furniture Retailer Founded by a Two-Time Cancer Survivor

Revenue: $2.5 billion (2020)

Visits: 40 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Midvale, Utah, U.S

Established year: 1999

Founder: Patrick M. Byrne

Overstock.com is a home furniture online retailer in the US. Workers in developing nations primarily make and manufacture their products directly for the company. They are well-known for their broad range of products and shipping services to most countries worldwide. 

Overstock.com was founded in 1997 by Patrick Byrne and introduced in May 1999. Initially, the business acted as a surplus goods online retailer, liquidating the stock of bankrupt dot-com firms at below-wholesale rates. They are still selling discounted products, including home furniture, home decor, bedding, and other items, but they also provide brand new stock.

On 9 January 2014, Overstock became the first online retailer to accept bitcoin as a payment method. After 22 hours, the company received 800 orders worth $126,000 in bitcoin. Overstock’s brilliant strategy to attract Bitcoin users to buy their products is accepting bitcoin.

Throughout the years, Overstock.com has gradually become one of the leading factors in the eCommerce and home furniture industry, with some significant achievements:

• Revenue increased 75%, from $1.5 billion in 2019 to $2.5 billion in 2020
• Got 2.7 million products on the website overstock.com
• Generated gross profit of $580 million in 2020

Random trivia about Overstock: the company’s founder, Patrick, does not have the story of people beginning from nothing and gaining incredible success by dragging themselves up by their bootstraps. Patrick earned his Ph.D. at Stanford in his twenties. His father and two brothers are all successful businessmen. Patrick was 37 when he bought Deals.com, a firm that specialized in liquidating surplus inventory. This company was later renamed Overstock.com.

20. Wish – Low-Price Product Online Retailer

Revenue: $2.5 billion (2020)

Visits: 90.14 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: San Francisco, U.S.

Established year: 2011

Founder: Peter Szulczewski, Sheng Zhang

Wish is an American eCommerce company. It operates as a platform for buyers and sellers to connect. You can find a broad range of products with surprisingly low prices on their website and app.

Peter and Sheng founded Wish in 2010. It began as an app that enabled users to build wishlists of their favorite items and was monetized by a pay-per-click model. Wish became an eCommerce site in 2013, and the most downloaded eCommerce app in the US in 2017, only seven years after its establishment.

Wish is not famous for high-end products or fashion items from renowned global brands. What makes it different is their unbranded products sold by small businesses with rock-bottom prices. Its business model concentrates on one thing and one thing only: price. There is no expanded media space or next-day delivery; the company only tries to provide direct-to-customer products at the lowest price possible.

It may sound like a stupid business plan, but it has been helping Wish become one of the best eCommerce sites worldwide, with many significant achievements:

• Revenue increased 31.58% from $1.9 billion in 2019 to $2.5 billion in 2020
• Profit increased 478% from $129 million in 2019 to $745 million in 2020
• Got 500 million users and 90 million monthly users in 2019
• 80% of first-time customers keep returning to buy (in 2019)

Random trivia about Wish: at first, Wish was opened as a software company named ContextLogic. Peter Szulczewski was the only founder of the company at this time. It’s also interesting to know that he is a former Google engineer. The company was relaunched to Wish in 2011 when Danny Zhang, Peter’s college friend, joined the team.

21. Coolblue – an Electronic Company With the Primary Aim of Customers’ Smile

Revenue: $1.9 billion (2019)

Visits: 13.96 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Rotterdam, Netherlands

Established year: 1999

Founder: Pieter Zwart, Paul de Jong, Bart Kuijpers

Coolblue, specializing in electronic products, is one of the Dutch best eCommerce websites. Their product line includes a surprisingly wide range of electronics, from coffee makers to car accessories, from rowing machines to smart TVs. It has 15 physical stores in the Netherlands and Belgium and a German website.

Coolblue was founded in 1999 by three Business Administration students. Their goals were making money and being an example for customer-oriented entrepreneurship. The name Coolblue was the opposite of HotOrange, a prominent internet department store that outsourced everything to third parties.

HotOrange was entirely externally funded and didn’t have customer service. Coolblue’s founders wanted to be the opposite, so they reflected that intention in the name of their company, as “cool” is the opposite of “hot” and “blue” is the opposite of “orange”. 

Forbes used to write an article about the company’s incredibly fast growth. According to this article, Coolblue’s success is mainly thanks to its exceptionally good delivery and customer service. Thanks to this feature, the company has grown extremely fast, proved by the below impressive achievements they gained in the last 20 years:

• Won the award for Best Online Store in the Technology and Telecommunication in the Netherlands in 2012, 2013, and 2015
• Constantly increasing revenue from $310 million in 2013 to $1.9 billion in 2020, a 513% increase in 7 years
• Won the SafeShop Awards for the best webshop in Belgium in 2021 (decided by 4000 online shoppers)

Here’s some random trivia about Coolblue. Did you know that the very first business plan of the company was written on a… beer coaster? Pieter, Paul, and Bat were at a cafe when they came up with this idea. After that, Pieter’s student room has become the company’s office, warehouse, and store.

22. Farfetch – Amazon of Luxury Fashion

Revenue: $1.7 billion (2020) 

Visits: 21.88 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: London, England

Established year: 2007

Founder: José Neves

Farfetch is a luxury fashion online retailer headquartered in London. They provide on their website products from over 2,400 boutiques and brands worldwide. The company has offices in 14 cities and 11 websites for different areas.

Farfetch was founded by a Portuguese entrepreneur in London, England. José had been active in the fashion start-up world in the 90s. Farfetch’s operation went incredibly well, and they acquired an online boutique retailer in London named Browns in 2015.

After only 14 years since its establishment, the company has become one of the best eCommerce sites worldwide with some significant figures:

• Got 3 million active customers and over 1,300 luxury sellers in 2020
• Reached the gross merchandise value of $3.2 billion in 2020
• Significantly increased revenue from $242.12 million in 2016 to $1.67 billion in 2020

Farfetch has been a competitor with many eCommerce giants in the world, such as Shopify, Zalando, ASOS, etc. Its annual revenue was quite lower than the others, though. In 2020, the sales revenue of Shopify, Zalando, and ASOS ranged from $2.9 billion to over $9 billion, while the figure of Farfetch was only $1.7 billion. However, given that the company was founded years later, it’s still an impressive achievement.

It’s also interesting to know that Farfetch is big yet not massive. Compared with Yoox, an Italian online fashion retailer founded after Farfetch, Yoox is still bigger. Farfetch’s offering is 78 percent narrower than Yoox. Farfetch is not yet lucrative, although Yoox is. While Farfetch currently carries 2,400 brands, Yoox has 11,800 brands in store.

Interested in knowing more about the company? Watch this youtube video for the story of Farfetch:

23. Newegg – eCommerce Retailer for American Tech Lovers

Revenue: $2.7 billion (2016)

Visits: 29.37 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: California, U.S.

Established year: 2001

Founder: Fred Chang

Newegg is one of the largest online tech product retailers in North America. Their product line includes office appliances, computers, and computer hardware, home appliances, security devices, etc.

Newegg was founded in 2001 by Fred Chang, a U.S immigrant from Taiwan. Its primary customers include gamers, gamers, DIYers, and PC builders, but it has soon expanded its customer target to anyone who wants to buy the latest tech products. 

Only four years after that, in 2015, the company was one of the Internet’s Top 10 retailers by Internet Retailer Magazine. This same year, they hit another milestone in their sales and got an annual sales revenue of $1.3 billion.

There are many reasons that Newegg became such a successful eCommerce company. It has a highly customer-oriented service and has a subscription program that is quite similar to Amazon Prime. Furthermore, the company attracts many online sellers with its low commission rate.

Random facts about the company: did you know the meaning of their name? Traditionally, the egg represents both birth and limitless power. The designers chose the name “Newegg” to define a new promise for eCommerce when eCommerce companies were fighting to thrive.

In addition, there are still many things people did not know about Newegg. For example, many people thought that Newtech only sold technology items, but it also has other products, such as clothing, accessories, sports goods, flowers, toys, etc. The company broadened its product line in 2010 to reach more customers. Since then, their female customer number has grown significantly.

24. Vroom – a Leader in the Used-Car Retailing Industry

Revenue: 1.358 billion (2020)

Visits: 2.74 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: New York

Established year: 2013

Founder:  Marshall Chesrown, Kevin Westfall, Scott Chesrown

Online car shopping is still an unfamiliar term to customers. Therefore, only a few open-minded entrepreneurs have the guts to open an online car retailer. Vroom is an ideal example.

Vroom is a used car retailer and e-commerce business headquartered in New York City that allows customers to purchase, sell, and fund cars online. It manages the wholesale with no-haggle pricing. Vroom sells only reconditioned vehicles and automates the refurbishment process with proprietary RFID monitoring and prioritization tools.

Marshall Chesrown, Kevin Westfall, and Scott Chesrown formed the company in 2013 under “AutoAmerica”. Elie Wurtman and Allon Bloch joined as co-founders in November 2014 to turn the business into a technical hub, and the company was called Vroom.

Today, Vroom has funded $440 million in total, has a refurbishment facility in Stafford, Texas, and was named one of Forbes’ Hottest E-Commerce Startups of 2015.

Since its establishment, the company still hasn’t made a profit, but it’s also considered one of the best online retailers, especially in the car industry, for some reasons:

• Got 5,107 vehicles available on its website in 2020
• Got 600 employees and 947,014 monthly visitors in 2020
• Constantly increasing revenue from $855 million in 2018 to 1.358 billion in 2020
• One of the possible reasons that Vroom still has not made a profit is because they spend more money to invest in long-term investments than the money they earned. 

One of the possible reasons that Vroom still has not made a profit is because they spend more money to invest in long-term investments than the money they earned. 

For example, 2020 has been a rough year for Vroom since most US people had to stay home because of the pandemic. As a result, the company had to apply several discount campaigns to reduce its excess inventory. However, that did not prevent them from investing in marketing. Earlier this year, Vroom bought an ad in the Super Bowl to promote the company.

Watch Vroom’s commercial video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haXc74orwhg

25. Fanatics – Online Sports Retailer for Sports Fans

Revenue: $3 billion (expectation in 2021)

Visits: 10.25 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Jacksonville, Florida, U.S.

Established year: 1995

Founder: Alan Trager

Fanatics is an online sports item retailer based in Florida. It sells merchandise under the Fanatics and FansEdge names and sports collectibles and memorabilia through Fanatics Authentic and SportsMemorabilia.com. The company also runs the eCommerce networks of various national sports teams (MLB, NASCAR, NBA), major television brands (CBS Sports, Fox Sports, and NBC Sports), and more than 150 college and professional team properties. In addition, they are the exclusive internet dealer for the United States Olympic Team and Paris Saint-Germain.

Fanatics was founded in 1995. It started as a brick-and-mortar store in Orange Park mall under “Football Fanatics”. Their products then focused on Jacksonville Jaguars, a football team based in Florida, and local collegiate team merchandise. Fanatics got its second store in the Avenues Mall in 1997 and went online in 2000.

The company started getting success not long after its establishment, resulting from a business plan that targeted and collaborated with websites with high-quality content and domain names. The corporation started as a customer-focused organization with the goal “To consider the customer first in everything we do.”

Some ideal examples of Fanatics’ success:

• Raised $350 million in funding in 2020 and $320 million in 2021
• The company’s valuation increased from 4.5 billion in 2018 to 12.8 billion in 2021
• Reached 80 million sports consumers
• Having relationships with over 1000 brands, including Empire Warehouse, Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, Reebok, and many more
• Got their products sold on the Walmart website since 2019

26. Groupon – an Industry-Changing eCommerce Company With Quick Rise and Quick Fall

Revenue: $1.417 billion (2020)

Visits: 26.11 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Chicago, US

Established year: 2008

Founder: Andrew Mason, Eric Lefkofsky, Brad Keywell

Groupon is one of the best eCommerce websites in the United States that connects subscribers with local retailers by offering activities, flights, merchandise, and services. The company’s concept is to provide a discount for customers when they buy in a group, as Groupon combines “Group” and “Coupon. Many businesses have been using this platform to promote their services’ discounts or vouchers.

Groupon was founded in 2008. The idea belonged to Andrew Mason, a graduate student in his mid-20s. Eric Lefkofsky, a tech billionaire, was interested in the concept and funded $1 million for Andrew to develop it. Groupon’s first offering was a two-for-one pizza deal at Motel Bar, a restaurant on the first floor of its building in Chicago.

Group buying focus has been proved to be a brilliant strategy. Within two years since its establishment, Groupon generated millions in monthly sales and was valued at several billion dollars. Its growth speed is faster than Apple, Facebook, and Google. Until now, Groupon has gradually become an industry-changing site with many impressive achievements:

• The download number of the Groupon app was 183 million in 2018
• Active in 15 countries and 500 markets in 2018
• Reached sales revenue of $1.61 billion in 2011, only three years since its establishment
• Got over 40 million active customers since 2012

As successful as the company seems, did you know there was a rough time when they had to fire their CEO, who came up with the whole group-buying idea, Andrea Mason? In 2013, Groupon’s stock fell to one-quarter of its IPO price. The company suffered a huge loss this year, so they fired Andrew. He is now the founder and CEO of a smaller company named Descript. It develops tools for transcribing and editing spoken-word recordings.

27. Ozon – From a Bookseller to Amazon of Russia

Revenue: $1.15 billion (2020)

Visits: 88.94 million (April 2021)

Headquarters: Moscow, Russia

Established year: 1998

Founder: Alexander Egorov

Ozon is one of the first and best eCommerce websites in Russia. They provide a wide range of products, from clothes, baby, and beauty products to technology items. In Russia’s cash-based economy, where the delivery networks are shaky, the company has to be exceptional and extraordinary to stand out from the crowd and make it in the eCommerce industry. 

Reksoft, a Russian tech company, opened Ozon as an online bookseller in 1998. From 2001 to 2002, it expanded its product line to more products besides books, including software products, toys, and electronic devices, and launched delivery services to 400 cities in Russia. Since then, from a bookseller, Ozon has become a significant eCommerce player.

In Russia, the firm is a pioneer in the field of eCommerce. Thanks to the support from well-known and admired shareholders, Ozon has been transforming into the industry leader it is today. Since its establishment, Ozon has developed significantly.

Besides being the first online retailer in Russia, they’re also the first eCommerce company to have a logistics center. Ozon opened its logistics center in Tver in 2005. In the following year, 2006, the company launched a fast delivery option, allowing products to be shipped on the same day or the next day they are bought. This strategy has helped Ozon’s sales revenue increase by 77%.

In addition to Ozon’s significant achievements, since 2019, the company has been receiving many different awards, including the award for First place among IT and Internet companies with more than 5,000 employees in 2020 from HeadHunter.ru, Big Turnover Award for Best Employer in 2020, Randstad Employer Brand Research 2021 Award for the Most attractive employer in eCommerce, and many more.

If you’re interested in knowing more about the company and the market in Russia, watch this video of Alexander, CEO of Ozon, talking about the Russian eCommerce field:

Company	Annual revenue	Visits	Headquarter	Established year	Founder
Amazon	$386.064B (2020)	3.24 billion	Seattle, Washington, U.S.	1994	Jeff Bezos
JD.com	RMB745.8 billion ($114.3 billion) in 2020	173.50 million (April 2021)	Beijing, China	1998	Liu Qiangdong
Alibaba	$72 billion (2020)	101.88 million (in April 2021)	Beijing, China	1999	Jack Ma
Suning.com	$40.1 billion (2020)	10.35 million (April 2021)	Nanjing, China	1996	Zhang Jindong
Meituan	257.562 billion RMB (2020)	10.35 million (April 2021)	Nanjing, China	2009	Wang Xing
Wayfair	$14.145 billion (2020)	125.82 million (April 2021)	Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.	2002	Niraj Shah & Steve Conine
Otto Group	17.33 billion USD (2019-2020)	95.9 thousand (April 2021)	Hamburg, Germany	1949	Werner Otto
Rakuten	$13.29 billion (2020)	2.81 million (April 2021)	Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan	1997	Hiroshi Mikitani
eBay	$10.27 billion (2020)	885.48 million (April 2020)	San Jose, California, U.S	1995	Pierre Omidyar
Zalando	$9.65 billion (2020)	6.05 million (April 2020)	Berlin, Germany	October 2008	Robert Gentz, David Schneider
Chewy	$7.15 billion (2020)	45.95 million (April 2021)	Dania Beach, Florida, U.S.	2011	Ryan Cohen & Michael Day
Coupang	$12.34 billion (2020)	65.5 million (April 2021)	Seoul, South Korea	2010	Bom Kim
Flipkart	$4.8 billion (2020)	176.93 million (April 2021)	Bangalore, Karnataka, India	2007	Sachin Bansal & Binny Bansal
Wildberries	$3 billion (2020)	154.45 million (April 2021)	Moscow, Russia	2004	Tatyana Bakalchuk
ASOS	$4.6 billion (2020)	79.21 million (April 2021)	London, England	2000	Nick Robertson, Quentin Griffiths
Sea Limited	$4.376 billion (2020)	Singapore	2009	Forrest Li
Pinduoduo	$9.118 billion (2020)	241.53 million (April 2021)	Shanghai, China	2015	Colin Huang
Shopify	$2.929 billion (2020)	57 million (April 2021)	Ontario, Canada	2006	Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, Scott Lake
Overstock.com	$2.5 billion (2020)	40 million (April 2021)	Midvale, Utah, U.S	1999	Patrick M. Byrne
Wish	$2.5 billion (2020)	90.14 million (April 2021)	San Francisco, U.S.	2011	Peter Szulczewski, Sheng Zhang
Coolblue	$1.9 billion (2019)	13.96 million (April 2021)	Rotterdam, Netherlands	1999	Pieter Zwart, Paul de Jong, Bart Kuijpers
Farfetch	$1.7 billion (2020)	21.88 million (April 2021)	London, England	2007	José Neves
Newegg	$2.7 billion (2016)	29.37 million (April 2021)	California, U.S.	2001	Fred Chang
Vroom	1.358 billion (2020)	2.74 million (April 2021)	New York	2013	Marshall Chesrown, Kevin Westfall, Scott Chesrown
Fanatics	$3 billion (expectation in 2021)	10.25 million (April 2021)	Jacksonville, Florida, U.S.	1995	Alan Trager
Groupon	$1.417 billion (2020)	26.11 million (April 2021)	Chicago, US	2008	Andrew Mason, Eric Lefkofsky, Brad Keywell
Ozon	$1.15 billion (2020)	88.94 million (April 2021)	Moscow, Russia	1998	Alexander Egorov

Conclusion

Above are the 28 top eCommerce sites in the world which can hopefully give you some eCommerce website inspiration. If you are thinking of opening your eCommerce business, remember to be patient and not let others’ success stories make you impatient or overly ambitious.

Comment below other great eCommerce websites you know, and don’t forget to share this article with your friends if you find it interesting!