Following a year of lockdown-related growth in 2020, retail ecommerce sales in Western Europe will continue to rise for the next several years. By the end of 2022, ecommerce sales will account for 14.8% of total retail sales in the region and hit nearly $660 billion.

Last year, there was a huge shakeout in the UK’s retail landscape. Long-established names disappeared, hobbled by pandemic pressures, while a swath of digital-first players gained new customers.

The 2019 holiday season capped a tough year for physical retailers in the UK, with brick-and-mortar sales down for the second year running. However, strong gains in retail ecommerce sales meant that overall, retail sales saw growth during the season.

These sales will account for 13.1% of total ecommerce sales this year. By contrast, US social commerce will reach $36.09 billion—one-tenth that of China—while accounting for 4.3% of US ecommerce sales. While modest today, the US market is growing fast.

In what may be somewhat surprising, Germany’s ecommerce sales in March this year were initially undermined by the coronavirus outbreak. According to Bundesverband E-Commerce und Versandhandel (bevh), while many shoppers in Germany visited physical stores to stockpile goods that month, ecommerce sales actually declined.

Our estimates for retail and ecommerce sales factor in the effects of the pandemic. Our forecasts in this report represent our base case. This scenario presumes that the widespread restrictions on social interactions enforced through May 2020 are gradually lifted. Cases of the virus in Europe and the US have peaked by May and society slowly returns to a “new normal” in Q3.

The European competition: A multitude of European startups are competing fiercely in this space, including Germany’s Flink, Turkey’s Getir, and London-based Zapp. Philadelphia-based Gopuff is also making a significant play for the European market, having acquired UK delivery services Dija and Fancy in just the past few months.

Retail mcommerce sales in the UK will grow to £61.14 billion ($78.03 billion) in 2020, according to our latest estimates. And for the first time, retail mcommerce sales will make up more than 50% of total retail ecommerce sales in the UK.

Retail ecommerce in Western Europe was already growing at a healthy clip, both in aggregate and as a share of overall retail, but we now expect that the pandemic will cause overall spending to increase much faster than anticipated. Even as overall retail declines by 9.9% in the region, we estimate that ecommerce sales will jump by 16.9% this year—well up from our pre-pandemic forecast of 8.8%.

Ecommerce sales in Spain will grow faster than any other country in Western Europe in the next three years, propelled by the rise of AliExpress and its continued competition with Amazon to be the go-to marketplace.

The UK is something of a global leader when it comes to retail ecommerce. As a proportion of total retail sales, only China will trump the UK in ecommerce sales penetration this year (41.2% versus 30.9%, respectively). The UK’s fulfillment and delivery infrastructure is, as one would expect, quite mature.