We’ll help you to localise your digital marketing strategy for the Slovenian market. Tell us about your export business goals and we’ll give you a hand in market sizing, digital marketing cost estimation, business plan validation and an action plan for achieving success in the Slovenian market.
Slovenia
as your next market for growthGrow your business in Slovenia
Expand beyond borders and beyond your expectations. Capitalize on a powerful market with western shopping mentality.
A crucial commercial hub, Slovenia is connecting Austria, Italy, Hungary, as well as clearing pathways down south to the Adriatic sea. With a population of only 2 million, you’ll rarely hear Slovenia is a stand-alone market for expansion in the prevalent e-commerce narratives. It is mostly advised to add to your Croatia or the Balkans expansion plans. And while we confirm that strategy we will also challenge the whole notion of Slovenia being an add-on. Read why this green country might be small in size, but absolutely rich in ecosystem, demand and opportunities.
Country in a snapshot
Slovenia is “a little Scandinavia” in the wider CEE region. Locals have strong purchasing power, and – as Spiderman – they use it with great responsibility. They browse and calculate, not necessarily because price is the determinant. But because they believe the shopping experience should fit their lifestyles (not the other way around): store’s UX and customer care, brand, mission, stance on environmentalism as well as practicalities such as fast delivery matter to them. The great news is that the competition is still not high enough and many local stores are still falling behind these new norms. Your chance to shine?
Europe’s most stunning caves (all 10.000 of them!) and overall love for nature. Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana, was awarded Europe’s Greenest Capital and the whole country is ranking high on the most sustainable nations list. Did we mention Triglav? A testament to how breath-taking outdoors can be.
Slovenians are quite adventurers. Not only do they have the world’s largest ski jump – the first married couple to summit Mt Everest were from Slovenia.
Get your adventurer’s hat on!
Slovenia’s potential for online business growth
1 447 000
Number of online shoppers
70%
Online shoppers compared to population
3000
Number of shops
€0.91bn
E‑commerce revenue (2023)
16%
E‑commerce growth
E-commerce growth, leaders and trends
With 21% yoy e-commerce growth, the total industry revenue reached 368 mil EUR in 2019, exceeded the 4 million EUR threshold in 2020 and is expected to hit 6 million in the next couple of years. The economy is continuously growing, providing citizens with a good standard of living. This brings Slovenia closer to Austria rather than Balkan countries.
Segment-wise, fashion accounts for 30% of Slovenia’s e-commerce revenue. According to our insider information, Slovenes don’t religiously follow trends to be stylish like Croats or Romanians, they opt for practicality: for instance, the most popular shoe type is hiking boots (Triglav Park is calling, we get it!). Electro as well as toys / hobby take quarter each, leaving 12% for home and decor and remaining 11% for food and personal care.
In terms of goods sold, fashion, sportswear and footwear took up to 43% in 2020. Household goods (kitchen and home appliances) and home and decor came second with 37%, then groceries, personal care and cosmetics (22%), electronics (19%) and computer hardware (17%) and supplements, vitamins and pharma (16%).
There are a little over 3000 online stores in Slovenia (there are 13 000 in Slovakia with double the Slovenia’s population, for instance), so the space for growth and saturation is very flexible at this point! Leading brands are mimovrstve.com, all-round online store launched way back in 2001 with everything from phone devices to hobby products, fashion or auto-moto. In 2020, it reached 50 mil EUR revenue. The big three then consists of DIY store merkur.si (16 mil EUR) and electronic-focused bigbang.si (12.7 mil EUR). Altogether, they account for 20% of online retail revenue. From local players, shoppster.si (formerly ideo.si), lekarnar.com, enaa.com or moemax.si would be another ones to watch. Abroad giants such as Amazon, eBay, Bolha or Aliexpress are no foreign names to Slovenian customers.
Customers
Out of the 2 million population, 86% are internet users and about 60% shop online. Slovenians like to shop in local-owned online stores. Based on Ceneje.si and Valicon research, 47% prefer to buy from Slovenian-owned online businesses. When it comes to electronics, home and decor, DIY or hobby, national players have a very strong position. Slovenes are also fairly used to buy from abroad brands, from Amazon to service-based platforms such as Airbnb: 18% shop cross-border regularly, mostly in Germany, Italy, Austria and China.
Mobile shopping penetration is above 50% and expected to continuously grow, too. In terms of preferences, Slovenes don’t use iOS devices very often (17.2%). In fact, about 80% (and growing) of web traffic is generated from Android devices.
Another interesting fact about Slovenia’s population is how equally it is distributed: 55.3% of inhabitants live in urban areas and 44.7% in rural parts of the country – numbers that come to play when putting together the logistic / delivery puzzle or even in PPC strategizing.
How do Slovenes browse and buy? As everywhere, price is an important factor, but not necessarily a determinant. Possessing the economic power, shopping mentality (and basket size / content) in Slovenia is close to the ones in western countries. Slovenes are focused and committed by default, which shows in their customer cycle: browsing and comparing phases is important to them. It’s called shopping smart here. Like in other CEE countries, overall customer experience is an increasingly important decision-making factor, if not the leading one. Same goes for after care.
Contrary to Croatia, five day delivery is not an option for Slovenes. The stores that are thriving on the market made it their mission to work on smooth logistics and fast delivery.
How to get their attention:
Ecosystem
Logistics. Slovenia’s location predestines it to being a key trade route, connecting western Europe and CEE with the Adriatic sea and vice versa. Over 700 km of well-connected motorways, tunnels and corridors and 1,000 km of trunk roads prove local infrastructure level is high. The logistics sector employs around 29,400 employees in about 3,500 companies. More than 50% of online stores use Slovenian Post (Pošta Slovenije) as one of their providers. International couriers GLS (30%) and DPD (19%) form the three most popular options. One of the most important market leaders in Slovenia is fully.si which gives to their customers an extended warehouse and logistics support and the company is also the founding member of the Association of Online Traders in Slovenia.
Legislation / administration. Standard Slovenian VAT is 22% and it is compulsory to register to pay after hitting 35,000 EUR in 12 consecutive months. There is reduced 9.5% VAT for water supply, pharmaceuticals, admission to sports events and other specific services, and 5% for books. Moreover combined with the wide availability of skilled human resources Slovenia could offer great opportunities for future market investment activities. Currently over 70% of the population speaks at least one foreign language and thanks to the developed education system digital literacy and innovative mindset is on a high level.
Payment. Something very unique in wider CEE: online shoppers in Slovenia like to pay with prepaid cards (e.g. MINT). In fact, 63% of transactions are carried out this way. Mobile payments take up to 17% of overall e-commerce payments, credit cards 10% and e-wallets 9%. Cash on delivery has even tinier numbers and bank transfers, a pretty popular option in Czechia (18%), accounts for less than 1% here.
Deep dive into digital marketing
Slovenes are into smart shopping and you might as well be into smart acquizition. Did you know the shopping mentality is basically western and EUR is the official currency? That might already make marketing strategy easier and if not, make this your go-to: locals hang out around price comparison sites, they’re on Facebook and Instagram. A combo of PPC and comparison engine optimization you are used from other CEE markets is to be applied here. Then once the foundation works, take it to the next level: conscious customers Slovenes are, you’ll score extra points with authentic content creation, showing more of your company, its people, core values, mission, packaging or processes.
“We’ve localised the marketing strategy for over 100 projects. Tell us about your export business goals and we’ll give you a hand in market sizing, digital marketing cost estimation, business plan validation and an action plan for success. Our clients have grown on average by 84 % in the last 5 years.”
– László Szabó, Google Certified Trainer for Export in CEE.
Price Comparison Shopping Optimization
You might have already got the hint at this point: Slovenes are a thorough-research-across-the-internet type of people. So you might wanna jump on the comparison engine wagon as early as possible.
Ceneje.si is the place to be in Slovenia. Part of Heureka Group and leading comparison shopping platform in the region, it brings together over 400 online stores, 8.000 brands and 1.5 million products. Smart shopping starts and ends here and if you already have the best practices around maximizing results from price comparison sites from other Heureka’s platforms (or other comparison engines for that matter), applying them on Ceneje is the way to get your first customers in the Balkans.
Pametno.si is another one, smaller but why not leverage since you likely have more elaborated know-how around optimization than local players?
PPC Advertising
Another set of tools ideal for validating the market while already seeing results are Google Ads and Facebook Ads campaigns (there is no Google Shopping in Slovenia). “As a results-first focused agency with senior specialists native in 6 CEE languages, we’ve seen the power localised campaigns can bring to an exporting business, even if it’s a first-timer,” László shares Growww Digital’s core beliefs. In countries with no Google Shopping, smart PPC is a must.
SEO
Having a localized version of your store, in EUR and in Slovenian will enable you to have your store indexed in Slovenia’s search engines. Review your content and technical search engine optimization. We recommend having your technical (off-page) SEO centralized, meaning it is set in the same way across countries you export to. Make sure you localize off-site link building to Slovenian pages. On-site wording and localization is crucial – we cannot emphasize this step enough.
Social Media & Brand Communication
There are about 1.45 million social media users in Slovenia and 96% access social media from their mobile phones. Mobile-first website with UX on point (or an app) helps you capitalize on that behaviour, together with social media presence. You can get to 940,000 users via Facebook and Facebook ads, 510,000 through Instagram campaigns, and 367,500 through Snapchat advertising.
Conclusion and (your) next steps
Slovenia offers a rapidly expanding domestic e-commerce market combined with well developed telecommunications and tech infrastructure that many local players have not yet capitalized on.
In order to get hands-on market insight, join this Facebook mastermind, a closed community of committed exporters, or get in touch with us if you need help with export.
PS: If you know precisely what help you need in any area of digital marketing, talk to us directly and we will create a tailored offer that boosts your business results.