Global Cross-Border B2C E-Commerce 2021

Global Cross-Border B2C E-Commerce 2021

Amid the pandemic, online consumers prioritized more affordable prices and the variety of goods in cross-border shopping, says the new yStats.com publication.

A new publication from Germany-based research company yStats.com, titled “Global Cross-Border B2C E-Commerce 2021” summarizes the key trends and projections of Cross-Border B2C E-Commerce market during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The publication discloses that in 2020 the majority of online consumers preferred international online shopping over the local due to a greater variety of products and reasonable prices.

Cross-border B2C E-Commerce market value was projected to grow stedily by 2026

Despite the projected decrease in global cross-border payments from 2019 to 2020 by 8%, after the COVID-19 onset, the overall cross-border B2C E-Commerce market value was forecasted to surge by 30% from 2019 to 2026. Furthermore, in Europe, along with the increase of the value of cross-border B2C E-Commerce, the growth rate was predicted to surge as well by 2022.

Amid the pandemic in 2020, the most popular segment to shop was “fashion”

In 2020, the most common product category in cross-border online shopping was “fashion”. Particularly, in South Korea this was the most popular type to purchase from abroad, along with “beverage & food” based on the value in 2020. Although in Australia, the same product category was ranked as the mostly purchased, “games & toys” segment was the top shopped in as well. Other than these categories, “cars & motorcycles”, “music”, vehicles and video related goods were also among the most common in other countries in 2020.

Domestic online sales dominated over cross-border in several countries of Europe, except for Italy in 2020

Cross-border B2C E-Commerce adoption spread differently in the countries all over the world. In some nations, domestic online sales/purchases prevailed the international ones in 2020. In Germany, the majority of online sales were done nationwide, while only about 30% were performed outside the country in the first quarter of 2020. The same pattern was seen in Russia, Poland, Turkey and Latin America, with the nationwide B2C E-Commerce market outweighing the international market the same year. Yet, in Italy, the majority of online sales were performed across the borders, outweighing the domestic digital in 2020.

Amazon.com, eBay and AliExpress were the popular online retail platforms in 2020

Due to the acceleration of cross-border B2C E-Commerce, more consumers turned to international digital retail platforms for shopping. The three most commonly used worldwide were Amazon.com, Alibaba/AliExpress and eBay in 2020 based on the preferences of surveyed consumers. Moreover, Amazon and eBay were chosen by most experts within E-Commerce industry to sell on in 2020. Other than that, based on the number of monthly visits over the last 6 months in 2020, the most popular digital commerce platform was Amazon.