- E-commerce activity sustained into 2021, new UNCTAD figures show
- The average share of internet users who made purchases online rose from 53% before the pandemic (2019) to 60% following the onset of the pandemic (2020/21)
- 7 countries that together comprise around half of global GDP, indicate that online retail sales increased substantially in these countries from around $2 trillion in 2019, pre-pandemic, to around $2.5 trillion in 2020 and $2.9 trillion in 2021
The significant increase in e-commerce fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic was sustained in 2021, according to new United Nations Conference on Trade and Development figures.
Despite easing of restrictions in many countries, UNCTAD in a statement said the average share of internet users who made purchases online grew from 53% before the pandemic (2019) to 60% following the onset of the pandemic (2020/21), across 66 countries with statistics available.
Official statistics, available for seven countries that together comprise around half of global 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 accounted for over half of the online retail sales across these countries and the US for a further 30%.
But the situation prior to the pandemic and the extent of the boost to online shopping experienced vary between countries, UNCTAD said. Many developed countries already had relatively high levels of online shopping (above 50% of internet users) before the pandemic while most developing countries had a lower uptake of consumer e-commerce.
The greatest rises occurred in several developing countries. In the United Arab Emirates, the share of internet users who shopped online more than doubled, from 27% in 2019 to 63% in 2020. In Bahrain the share tripled, reaching 45% in 2020, and in Uzbekistan it rose from 4% in 2018 to 11% 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%) 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% of internet users), Azerbaijan (5%), Uzbekistan (11%) and Colombia (17%).
One reason for such differences is that countries differ greatly in their extent of digitalization and therefore in their ability to turn swiftly to digital technologies to mitigate economic disruption. Least developed countries (LDCs) are especially in need of support to take up e-commerce but are not represented in this analysis due to a lack of data on internet usage.
The pre-existing upward trend accelerated in many of these countries; especially those where a relatively low share of retail sales take place online. 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 US 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% in 2019 to 19% 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 US (around one eighth). As a result of steep increases following the onset of the pandemic, the United Kingdom joined South Korea in having the highest overall online retail share in 2021, at 28%.
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 COVID-19 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).
