Ever since online stores started taking over the internet, the brick-and-mortar ones have witnessed a decrease in sales. Though online shopping has brought a lot of convenience for customers it has left retailers with stores more than a little concerned.
Just like the rest of the world, online shoppers in Pakistan too have seemed to increase incredibly over the past few years. A recent research carried out by Picodi.com gives stats regarding online shoppers, along with answering key questions such as how much money is spent by Pakistanis, what kind of devices they use and how does the activity change over the year.
The amplification of online shopping in Pakistan is mainly because of the rise in B2C (business-to-consumer) businesses. There was a time when Pakistanis used to wonder how Amazon shopping feels like because there were no such facilities in the country. However, the dream came true when several Pakistani online stores such as Daraz.pk, Yayvo and GetNow.pk entered into the market. There were only a few people who were familiar with the concept of online shopping in Pakistan before the launch of these stores. These are several amazon-structured online marketplaces in the country that have altered people’s lifestyles in just a few years.
On the other hand, there are approximately 23 million Internet users in the country and most of them have their personal 3G/4G mobile access. What is more, there are around 150 million cellular subscribers from Karachi to KPK. Due to an easy access to the Internet and mobile phones, the e-commerce business in Pakistan is now accelerating at an ever rapid pace. According to a research, the current annual income of e-commerce businesses in the country is between $25 and $30 million. This figure is expected to raise up to $1 billion by the year 2020.
Pakistanis are sales and price conscious and they mostly use social media websites to search their products and brands. They still don’t prefer Google for searching and use Facebook and Instagram the most. This creates a challenging situation for businesses to compete and retain in the market. However, this challenge results in forcing them to offer appealing discounts and sales packages to customers. This is one of the main reasons why people in Pakistan are more inclined towards online shopping than other countries. Not only do they get amazingly lowered prices at different marketplaces, but they save their transportation cost as some stores do not charge delivery fees.
The online shopping isn’t confined to buying regular items through the web. The e-commerce business has enlarged up to a great extent and some sensitive transactions are made online. For instance, zameen.com is an online marketplace that deals with property-related matters. People are now using services like Foodpanda to order food online from different areas of the city. In short, the Internet has penetrated into our lives and everything is at our fingertips now. As a result, we as consumers are benefiting and the e-commerce business is thriving.
After analyzing data from 35 countries, it was discovered that Pakistan is among those countries with mobile shopping on the rise with 44% orders made on mobile devices. Peru made it to the top of the list with 76% of online purchases through smartphones, followed by Nigeria and Thailand at 62% and 56% correspondingly.
However, as for the average order value, Pakistanis, with their $67 (Rs 9,310), rank lower than the world’s average, which is $79. The most money per order was spent by Emiratis, astounding amount of $218, whereas, Hungarians and Turks came in at the bottom with $32 and $38 respectively.
All in all, with the passage of time, online shopping has seen a great rise with more to be expected in coming years. With the feasibility of ordering things online with the luxury to sit at home, online shopping is for sure a treat for people all across the world.
