A new market report “Kazakhstan B2C E-Commerce Market 2015”, published by Germany-based secondary market research firm yStats.com reveals that online retail in Kazakhstan has significant potential for growth. Already one of the strongest economies in the region, Kazakhstan could see B2C E-Commerce sales expand at double-digit rates in the next years.
Kazakhstan is the largest and the most advanced B2C E-Commerce market in the emerging region of Central Asia and Caucasus, with triple-digit sales figures in millions of U.S. dollars, as revealed in the report by yStats.com. Still, B2C E-Commerce accounts for less than 2% of total retail sales in the country, indicating significant room for growth. Among the growth drivers are the increasing Internet penetration, reaching over 50% of the population in 2014, and growing interest in online shopping, especially among the young population.
One of the challenges to the B2C E-Commerce market in Kazakhstan is the dominance of cash on delivery as the payment method, yStats.com reports. Close to half of online shoppers used this method to pay for purchases made over the Internet in 2014. Nevertheless, online payment with bank cards is growing, accounting for one-fifth of all bank card payments by mid-2015. Clothing, cosmetics and food were among the product categories most purchased online in Kazakhstan last year, while the largest average purchase was attributed to the travel category.
Three out of the top five online shops outside the online travel sector in Kazakhstan are foreign-based, including Lamoda and Wildberries, both specialized in clothing and based in Russia, and Germany-based Otto Group which operates a number of online stores in Kazakhstan. However, in the past two years the share of local online shops in overall B2C E-Commerce sales more than doubled, according to yStats.com’s findings. Among the local outlets, electronics retailer Arena S ranked in the top five by online sales, while one of the largest Internet holdings, the Chocofamily Holding, also based in Kazakhstan, saw rapid growth of its online shopping platforms.
