Shoprenter marks its 15th anniversary this year, a milestone that parallels the rapid maturation of Hungary’s online retail sector. In 2011 the country had only a few thousand webshops; by now estimates put the number at 35,000–40,000. Approximately one in six of those online stores runs on the Shoprenter platform. Over the past decade and a half Shoprenter has supported the launch of more than 20,000 shops, whose combined turnover reached 1,809 billion forints.
A technological shift: how hosted platforms changed the market
Underlying the market’s expansion is a fundamental technological shift: the rise of rentable webshop systems. According to Kulcsár István Róbert, Shoprenter co‑founder and lead advisor, launching a webshop in the 2000s required substantial development skills and capital, effectively barring many small businesses. Rentable platforms removed that barrier and enabled small and medium enterprises to enter online commerce at scale.
Three eras of e‑commerce
The sector’s development can be described in three phases. In the first phase, simply having an online presence was a competitive advantage. The second phase was defined by integrations and the ecosystem that formed around webshop engines: educational materials, conferences, expert communities, and payment and logistics services. Shoprenter has evolved into a comprehensive e‑commerce ecosystem in Hungary: the platform offers more than two hundred integrations and applications and is supported by a roughly 200‑person partner network. Practically, this means a merchant can cover most operational needs from a single platform — invoicing and logistics through marketing and back‑office systems.
The third phase is now emerging and appears to be driven by artificial intelligence. Shoprenter’s 2025 research indicates that 62 percent of Hungarian e‑merchants already use some form of AI solution for customer support tasks, product description generation, campaign optimization, or personalization. Industry expectations suggest this is only the beginning: in the coming years the key questions will be how much merchants can automate their processes, how quickly they respond to market changes, and how effectively they exploit AI capabilities.
"The next fifteen years will likely be about how people learn to work together with artificial intelligence," Kulcsár István Róbert added.
Why it matters
These developments are more than technical upgrades: they reshape how commerce operates, what services consumers can access, and the market entry opportunities for small businesses. What seemed like science fiction a decade ago — mass card payments, parcel locker pick‑ups, AI‑assisted shop operations — has become part of the fundamental infrastructure of e‑commerce, and human–AI collaboration is accelerating.
In the years ahead, the challenge for merchants will be to increase automation and integrate AI tools effectively into daily operations.
