COVID-19 boost to e-com sustained in 2021: UNCTAD

The average share of internet users who made purchases online increased from 53 per cent before the pandemic (2019) to 60 per cent following the onset of the pandemic (2020/21), across 66 countries with statistics available.

In the United Arab Emirates, the share of internet users who shopped online more than doubled, from 27 per cent in 2019 to 63 per cent in 2020. In Bahrain the share tripled, reaching 45 per cent in 2020, and in Uzbekistan it rose from 4 per cent in 2018 to 11 per cent in 2020.

In Thailand, which already had a relatively high uptake prior to the pandemic, a 16-percentage-point increase meant that for the first time more than half of internet users (56 per cent) shopped online in 2020.

Among developed countries, the greatest increases were seen in Greece (up 18 percentage points), Ireland, Hungary and Romania (each 15 percentage points).

Of the 66 countries covered, online shopping remains the lowest in El Salvador (1 per cent of internet users), Azerbaijan (5 per cent), Uzbekistan (11 per cent) and Colombia (17 per cent).

Official statistics, available for seven countries that together comprise around half of global gross domestic product (GDP), including the United States and China,, indicate that online retail sales increased substantially in these countries from around $2 trillion in 2019, immediately prior to the pandemic, to around $2.5 trillion in 2020 and $2.9 trillion in 2021. 

China accounts for over half of the online retail sales across these countries and the United States for a further 30 per cent, UNCTAD said in a press note.

In Singapore, online retail sales in 2021 were approaching triple the 2018 level. Canada and Australia also experienced especially large increases over the same period.

Looking across all these countries, although the disruption and economic uncertainty wrought by the pandemic suppressed overall retail sales into 2020 (only Australia and the United States saw retail sales increase from 2019 to 2020), online retail sales grew strongly as people took to shopping online and as offline sales declined.

This led to a marked increase in the share of online sales in total retail sales—from 16 per cent in 2019 to 19 per cent in 2020. That level was sustained into 2021 despite offline sales picking up strongly.

Online sales comprise a much greater share of total retail sales in China (around a quarter in 2021) than in the United States (around one eighth). As a result of steep increases following the onset of the pandemic, the United Kingdom joined Korea in having the highest overall online retail share in 2021, at 28 per cent.

The 13 top consumer-focused e-commerce businesses increased their revenues sharply during the pandemic. In 2019, these companies made sales worth $2.4 trillion. Following the onset of the pandemic in 2020, this rose sharply to $2.9 trillion, and a further one-third increase followed in 2021, taking total sales to $3.9 trillion (in current prices).

The shift towards online shopping has further entrenched the already strong market concentration of online retail and marketplace businesses, UNCTAD added.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)