Hamburg-based E-Commerce and Online Payment market research firm yStats.com has released a new publication focusing on online retail development in emerging markets worldwide. The report, titled “Online Retail in Emerging Markets 2016”, demonstrates that online retail is still nascent in many of these markets, with online shares of retail sales at low one-digit numbers, but has bright growth prospects.
According to global forecasts cited in the yStats.com report, emerging markets around the world are predicted to lead global online retail sales growth. As a result, the global share of the regions where major emerging markets are located, such as Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa are predicted to increase through 2019. B2C E-Commerce in the majority of these fast growing markets, with a few notable exceptions such as China, still accounts for a low one-digit share of total retail sales, signaling significant room for growth.
The main growth drivers for online retail in these markets include increasing Internet and mobile connectivity, rising online shopper penetration, as well as improving regulatory, payment and logistics infrastructure. One of the main challenges, on the other hand, is lack of trust in online payments and high cash on delivery usage rates by online shoppers in many emerging countries including Nigeria, Russia, Colombia, Thailand and others. Furthermore, among the key findings of the new yStats.com report is the fact that while rapid growth of B2C E-Commerce is a common characteristic of many emerging markets, significant differences exist among individual countries in terms of Internet and online shopper penetration rates, preferred payment and delivery methods, and favorite online product categories.
