2011 has proven to be yet another successful year for e-commerce businesses with some £68 billion spent by online shoppers. The one piece of news which will especially please online retailers is the fact that this form of shopping is becoming popular across the world and not just in the western economies.
The rate of growth in the numbers of Internet users is continuing at a rapid pace in countries such as China, the Middle East, Brazil and many others. This trend is naturally followed by the rise of online shoppers.
According to recent research published by Euromonitor people in the Middle East have really taken to Internet shopping. The amount spent on the online by consumers here is set to double from $1.1 billion now to an astonishing $2.2 billion by 2016.
In the meantime in China the number of online shoppers has hit a staggering 513 million. This surely will be seen as a huge opportunity for online businesses not already trading in this country. It is true that market here is dominated by Taobao, which is essentially the local equivalent of eBay. However, it is bound to become more fragmented as the number of shoppers grows and new businesses learn how to win over Chinese consumers.
In the UK the online retail industry is going strong and has reported another record breaking Christmas period. As pretty much all experts agree, this rapid growth is set to continue over the next 12 months. IMRG is predicting a massive 15% growth for the industry in 2012.
With e-commerce businesses getting better at providing their consumers with excellent products and prices as well as improving marketing campaigns, there is no reason why the upward trend should suddenly stop.
Even the current tough economic climate affecting many of the western countries should not impact on e-commerce businesses as much as it may have on the more traditional retailers. Mainly due to the fact that it is much easier for online based ventures to capitalise on opportunities in almost any part of the world.
With online markets growing at a rapid pace in the countries mentioned above, many businesses based in the UK and Europe are already expanding their operations into those developing areas.
With political boundaries no longer stopping the expansion of e-commerce businesses, we can be fairly certain that this industry will not stop growing for some time yet.
Eva works for PayPoint.net - Merchant Services