Although Australia isn’t the largest market or country in the Asia-Pacific region, it still packs a big punch in e-commerce. yStats.com, researcher and reporter on international market trends, recently published a report regarding the potential growth of the business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce market is the Asia-Pacific region.

The report details the possibility that the region could grow over 20 percent annually, surpassing North American in B2C e-commerce sales by 2018. With a large population base, increasing Internet connectivity and disposable incomes, the countries in Asia Pacific have set the stage well for rapid growth.

Australia, with one of the highest Internet penetration rates in the region, has one of the highest B2C e-commerce sales rates. Total retail sales of items purchased online is close to 10 percent, with over three quarters of Internet users purchasing goods and services online.

As far as the rest of the region is concerned, the largest Internet companies come from China and Japan, including Alibaba (whose recent IPO price the first day nearly doubled) and JD.com from China, and Rakuten from Japan.

China has over 300 million online shoppers as of 2013, which will only continue to increase rapidly as more people get access to the Internet. This puts China as the second largest online shopping market in the world, and first in the Asia-Pacific region. Japan follows close behind as the number three online market worldwide, mainly due to its status as the most advanced B2C market in the world. South Korea also ranks high, with Indonesia, India and Thailand shining as rising stars in the e-commerce market, with a lot of potential growth for the future.

Find out more:  http://www.businessreviewaustralia.com/finance/1339/How-The-AsiaPacific-Region-Could-Outshine-The-Americas-In-Ecommerce-By-2018