Online shopping in Bulgaria: how Bulgarians buy online

In short: about half of Bulgarians aged 16 to 74 (51.2%) bought something online in the last 12 months, against 73.6% across the EU (NSI and Eurostat data for the year 2025). Bulgarians buy mostly clothes and shoes, mostly from Bulgarian stores, and many still pay cash on delivery and collect the parcel from a courier office or a parcel locker. A store that wants to sell here needs those options at checkout from day one.

This guide is for founders, expats and EU sellers who want to sell to Bulgarian customers. The market figures come from the National Statistical Institute (NSI), Eurostat and the World Bank, linked in each section. What a store needs to match these habits is described with the features of CloudCart, the Bulgarian ecommerce platform.

Online shopping in Bulgaria in numbers

Online shopping in Bulgaria is still growing, from a lower base than the EU average. The NSI survey on household ICT use reports that 51.2% of people aged 16 to 74 bought goods or services for private use online in the year before the interview, 1.4 percentage points more than a year earlier (NSI, ICT usage in households and by individuals, 2025). Internet access is no longer the barrier: 92.8% of households are online, and 85.5% of people go online from a mobile phone.

The gap is in how often people buy. Eurostat puts the difference between internet use and online buying in Bulgaria at 33 percentage points, the widest in the EU, where the average gap is 17 (Eurostat, E-commerce statistics for individuals).

Indicator (people aged 16 to 74, 2025)	Bulgaria	EU average
Bought online in the last 12 months	51.2%	73.6%
Bought online in the last 3 months	34.8%	62.4%
Last online purchase more than a year ago	12.1%	5.6%
Never bought online	26.5%	15.3%
6 or more online purchases in the last 3 months	9.1%	20.1%

Source: Eurostat dataset isoc_ec_ib20, data for 2025. For a seller, the table says two things. A large group of Bulgarians already buys online but only now and then, so a first order that goes smoothly matters more than in markets where people buy every week. And about a quarter of adults have never bought online, which leaves room to grow.

Who shops online in Bulgaria

Online shoppers in Bulgaria are younger, urban and concentrated around Sofia. The NSI figures for 2025 show the split:

• Age. 70.8% of people aged 25 to 34 and 67.7% of those aged 16 to 24 bought online, against 17.7% of people aged 65 to 74.
• Town and village. 55.0% of people in towns bought online, against 40.4% in villages.
• Region. The Yugozapaden region, which includes Sofia, leads with 62.0%. Yugoiztochen, in the south-east, has the lowest share at 37.7%.
• Gender. Women buy online slightly more often than men: 53.4% against 49.0%.

The practical consequence: delivery outside the big cities has to be as easy as delivery in Sofia. In villages and small towns, the courier office or parcel locker is often the most convenient way to receive a parcel, and that is where the Bulgarian couriers' office networks help.

What Bulgarians buy online

Clothes, shoes and accessories are by far the most common online purchase in Bulgaria. Among people who bought online in the last 3 months, Eurostat's data for 2024 shows these shares:

Product group (bought online in the last 3 months, 2024)	Bulgaria	EU average
Clothes, shoes or accessories	79.0%	70.3%
Sports goods (excluding clothing)	32.7%	25.6%
Cosmetics, beauty or wellness products	32.7%	31.3%
Restaurant and fast-food deliveries	32.0%	32.9%
Consumer electronics or household appliances	20.8%	17.9%
Computers, tablets, phones or accessories	20.7%	22.8%
Medicine or dietary supplements	19.3%	24.3%
Food or drinks from stores	17.1%	18.3%
Toys or childcare items	15.4%	20.1%
Furniture, home or garden products	14.5%	29.9%

Source: Eurostat dataset isoc_ec_ibgs. Fashion, sports and beauty are above the EU average, so these categories have the most established online buyers and also the most competition. Furniture, home and garden is at half the EU level: fewer people buy it online today, which can be an opening for a store that solves delivery of bulky items and shows clear photos and dimensions.

Services follow a different pattern. Bulgarians buy far fewer digital subscriptions than the EU average: 9% have a paid film, series or sports streaming subscription, against 33% in the EU (Eurostat, 2025). For an online store, physical goods remain the core of the market.

Do Bulgarians buy from Bulgarian or foreign stores

Bulgarian shoppers buy mainly from Bulgarian sellers. In Eurostat's latest data on the origin of sellers (2023), 95.5% of people who bought online in the last 3 months bought from sellers in Bulgaria, 27.4% from sellers in other EU countries and 12.9% from sellers outside the EU (Eurostat, Internet purchases by origin of sellers). The EU averages are 83.0%, 32.8% and 20.1%.

For a foreign seller, this is the key point of the whole market. A Bulgarian customer expects a store that looks and works like a Bulgarian one: prices in euros, a text in Bulgarian, a Bulgarian courier, delivery to a courier office and cash on delivery. A store that ships from abroad with only card payment and home delivery competes for the smaller cross-border share.

Important: Bulgaria has used the euro since January 1, 2026, at a fixed rate of €1 = 1.95583 leva (European Commission). Prices on a store for Bulgarian customers are in euros.

How Bulgarians pay online: cash on delivery and cards

Cash on delivery (COD) is still the default choice for many Bulgarian online shoppers: the customer pays the courier when the parcel arrives. In the World Bank's Global Findex survey for Bulgaria (interviews in 2024), only about one in five respondents who had bought online said they usually pay online; the others said they pay in cash on delivery or switch between both (Global Findex 2025, Bulgaria, question fin27). These are sample shares, not a population estimate, but the direction is clear.

Shoppers choose COD for a simple reason: they see the parcel before they pay, which matters most with a store they don't know yet. In practice, a Bulgarian store offers both. Cash on delivery wins the first order from a cautious customer; card, Apple Pay and Google Pay are faster for repeat customers and for the 25 to 34 group that buys most often.

COD also has a cost for the seller: the courier charges a fee for collecting the cash and transfers the amount later, and every COD order has to be matched with the courier's payout. The comparison of both methods is in cash on delivery vs card payments. The courier fees are in the guide to online store costs in Bulgaria.

Buy now, pay later is offered in Bulgaria by banks and consumer lenders: the customer chooses installments at checkout and gets approval from the lender. See buy now, pay later for an online store.

Delivery: courier offices, parcel lockers and addresses

Bulgarian shoppers pick up a large part of their parcels from a courier office or a parcel locker instead of waiting at home. The main couriers for online stores are Econt and Speedy (part of DPD, so its integration is called DPD Bulgaria), both with networks of offices and parcel lockers across the country, and BOX NOW, which delivers only to parcel lockers. Sameday, GLS and DHL also deliver in Bulgaria.

What a Bulgarian shopper expects at checkout:

1. A choice of where to receive the parcel. Home or office address, a courier office, or a parcel locker, picked from a map or a list.
2. The shipping price before paying. The exact rate for the chosen office, locker or address, based on the weight and value of the cart.
3. A free shipping threshold. Many stores offer free shipping above an order value, and shoppers look for it.
4. A clear delivery time. Shoppers compare stores by how fast the parcel arrives, so state it on the product page and in the cart.
5. A tracking number. An email with the tracking number when the parcel ships, and the locker code for BOX NOW.

How to pick couriers and set rates is covered in shipping and couriers for an online store. A customer can also withdraw from an online purchase within 14 days of receiving the goods without giving a reason, under EU consumer law (Your Europe), so plan the return label too.

Marketplaces and price comparison sites in Bulgaria

Many Bulgarian shoppers start a search on a marketplace or a price comparison site, not on Google. The names a newcomer should know:

Channel	What it is	How a store uses it
eMAG	An online marketplace in Bulgaria and neighbouring countries, open to outside sellers	Your catalog is sent to eMAG as a feed; orders are processed in your eMAG seller account
OLX (olx.bg)	A classified ads marketplace, for new and used goods	Your products appear as OLX adverts, with categories and attributes mapped
Pazaruvaj	A Bulgarian price comparison site	Your products appear in the price comparison through a product feed, with store reviews from customers
Glami	A fashion price comparison site	Your clothing and shoes appear by category and size
Google Shopping	Product listings in Google search	Your products appear through Google Merchant Center

Price comparison sites matter in a market where shoppers check prices before they buy and often meet a store for the first time. A clear price, the shipping cost and store reviews on the comparison site are what turn a first click into a first order.

What builds trust with Bulgarian online shoppers

Trust is the main reason a Bulgarian shopper buys from one store and not another, especially for an occasional buyer. These signals answer the questions a cautious customer has before the first order:

• Cash on delivery as an option, so the customer pays only when the parcel is in their hands.
• A company name, address and phone number on every page, with a Bulgarian company ID (UIC) and VAT number where you have one.
• Clear delivery and return terms, with the 14-day withdrawal right explained in plain words.
• Reviews on the product page and on price comparison sites.
• A sales document or invoice with the order. In Bulgaria, Ordinance N-18 (the NRA's sales reporting rules) requires a store that takes card payments without a cash register to issue a sales document and report the orders to the NRA (the National Revenue Agency) in a monthly XML file.
• A store that works well on a phone, since most people go online from one.

The N-18 rules are explained step by step in Ordinance N-18 for online stores. In CloudCart, invoices and the sales document are issued from the order, and the N18 Audit app prepares the monthly file for the NRA. See invoices and Ordinance N-18.

Selling to Bulgaria from another EU country

An EU seller can sell to Bulgarian consumers without a Bulgarian company, but the habits above still apply, and VAT changes once you pass the EU threshold. When your distance sales of goods to consumers in other EU countries exceed €10,000 a year in total, you charge the VAT of the customer's country, which you can declare in one quarterly One Stop Shop (OSS) return in your home country. The rules are in the guide to OSS and EU VAT for cross-border sales.

Three choices usually decide whether a foreign store sells in Bulgaria:

1. Ship through a Bulgarian courier. Stock in Bulgaria, or a partner who ships from there, lets you offer delivery to an office or locker and cash on delivery.
2. Write the store in Bulgarian. Shoppers who buy from Bulgarian sellers 95% of the time expect product pages, checkout and emails in their language.
3. Show prices in euros, with VAT included, and the shipping price before checkout.

In CloudCart, the Multilang app runs a separate storefront for each language from one admin, with the catalog synced from the main store, so a store can sell in Bulgarian and English at the same time.

Important: the €10,000 threshold, OSS and Bulgarian registration are tax decisions. Confirm them with an accountant who knows both countries.

What your store needs to match how Bulgarians buy

Put together, the data gives a short checklist. A store selling in Bulgaria needs these features working before the first order:

Shopper habit	What the store needs	In CloudCart
Pays cash on delivery	COD at checkout and automatic matching of courier payouts	Cash on delivery switches on with no provider details. Econt and DPD report when the customer has paid, and the order is marked as paid automatically, depending on the plan
Collects from an office or locker	Office and locker selection in checkout, with the live rate	Econt, DPD (Speedy) and BOX NOW offices and lockers on a map or list in Checkout
Wants to see the parcel's way	Shipping labels and tracking from the order	The label is created from the order, and the customer gets an email with the tracking number
Looks for free shipping	A free shipping threshold shown in the cart	Free shipping above a threshold, and BumpCart shows how much is left and suggests a product to reach it
Pays by card when trust is there	Cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and installments	CloudCart Pay, plus installments from DSK Bank, Fibank and TBI Bank
Compares prices first	Product feeds to marketplaces and comparison sites	eMAG, OLX, Pazaruvaj, Glami and Google Shopping from one catalog
Expects a receipt	Sales documents, invoices and the NRA file	Invoices from the order and the N18 Audit app

The page on CloudCart Checkout shows how offices, lockers and payment methods appear to the customer on one page. If you are starting from scratch, the guide on how to start an online store in Bulgaria takes you through the 9 steps, from the platform to the first test order.

All plans and their limits are on the CloudCart pricing page. Questions about setting up a store for the Bulgarian market: support@cloudcart.com.

Frequently asked questions