Internet Retailer, the world’s largest publisher of e-commerce news, research and events, announced publication of the all-new 2012 Top 400 Europe, a 400-page guide packed with all-new operating and financial data, business profiles and executive contacts, and exclusive web sales rankings for the 400 largest e-retailers in Europe. For the first time ever, this second edition of the Top 400 Europe is now available in print, digital and online database versions at prices starting as low as $69. See complete product details and order your copy today.

This break-through research publication analyzes the leading competitors in what has become the most important e-commerce market on the planet. While American entrepreneurs rightly take credit for inventing e-commerce and the Internet, Europe holds title to the largest and fastest-growing e-commerce market in the world. Last year, the European e-commerce market, which fully incorporates the 27 countries that make up the European Union, grew 18.2% to $259.5 billion, according to the London-based Centre for Retail Research, making it one of the few vibrant business sectors of the euro-zone economy. By comparison, all American e-retailers in 2011 grew 16.1% last year to $194.3 billion.

The web merchants ranked and profiled in Internet Retailer’s all-new 2012 Top 400 Europe, collectively accounted for $104.2 billion in sales last year, or 40% of the euro zone’s total e-commerce market, and their overall growth rate matched that of the total market. However, as is the case in the United States, Europe’s web-only merchants (those with no catalogs or brick-and-mortar outlets), greatly outpaced everyone else. The 164 web-only merchants ranked in the new Top 400 Europe last year grew at a stunning 25.8% to $41.5 billion. Their online sales were slightly larger than the e-retailing volume of the 174 retail chains ranked in the Top 400, who collectively generated $39.2 billion online last year, an increase of only 11.2%, the slowest rate of any of the four primary merchant types competing online in Europe. The 32 catalog companies ranked in the 2012 Top 400 Europe grew their online sales last year by 16% to $17.4 billion, while the 30 European web sites of consumer goods manufacturers ranked in the Guide grew 18% to $6 billion.

The 2012 Top 400 Europe reveals that American merchants are accelerating their pursuit of the burgeoning euro zone e-commerce market, using sophisticated online technologies they perfected in the U.S. and applying the same all-region marketing and operations model that overnight created a national e-retailing market in America. By comparison, many European e-retailers focus their online business on their home market and bypass the cross borderr marketing opportunities that the web creates. Led by Amazon.com, the world’s largest e-retailer and the top web merchant in Europe as well, fully 33 web merchants of the Top 400 Europe are American owned operations and together they accounted for $35 billion, or one-third, of e-commerce sales of all 400 web merchants ranked in the publication. By comparison, European-owned retailers control less than 5% of the U.S. online business.

Such American inroads in a fast-growing euro zone e-retailing business presage a huge competitive battle between American e-retailers and their counterparts in Europe, who are anxious to defend their home turf and to leverage online their powerful brands loyal customer bases. That puts a premium on the very competitive intelligence packed in the 2012 Top 400 Europe. The best way to learn about any e-commerce market is to learn who the top players are, what their site metrics are, and which vendors they use. The Top 400 Europe provides all of the above.