Switzerland ranks first in e-commerce index, surpassing China and the United States

Last year, Swiss e-commerce grew by 25.8% to 13.3 billion Swiss francs, equivalent to 12.18 billion euros. The 2021 e-commerce index also ranked first for the first time, surpassing China and the United States.

Datatrans' "Swiss Business Report 2021" states that e-commerce in Switzerland accounts for 14.2% of total retail sales, with the top 30 B2C online merchants increasing their turnover by 25.7%.

According to a survey of 29 online and multi-channel retailers in Switzerland, the total e-commerce transaction volume last year was approximately 2.93 billion euros. And only 17% of people think that sales will decline in 2021. Most participants said that even after the epidemic is over and public life returns to normal, they will continue to consider online shopping, and e-commerce will still have a stable market. Therefore, many retailers have also begun to shift their businesses and increase their investment in e-commerce.

Even though Swiss e-commerce has not yet occupied a large market share, the current number of e-commerce companies is already a huge improvement. Urs Kisling, a member of the board of directors of Datatrans, made a prediction for the future market: "We are glad that we have overcome the trade crisis this time. The current high willingness to invest also shows that suppliers attach great importance to the needs of the current e-commerce market, which will accelerate the business transformation in Switzerland."

The latest data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development also shows that Europe is still the region most prepared for online retail, with most of the top ten coming from Europe. In 2021, Switzerland surpassed the Netherlands, which had held the top spot for two consecutive years, and took first place in the e-commerce index for the first time.

The biggest puzzle is that the first place is not the United States or China, but this ranking is based on different factors, such as access to Internet servers, reliability of postal services and infrastructure, and the proportion of the population that uses the Internet and has accounts in financial currencies. Therefore, although China and the United States have the largest e-commerce markets, they are still at the bottom of this ranking because their Internet penetration and e-commerce penetration rates are still relatively low.

However, the Internet penetration rate in Switzerland is quite high, with 95% of the population aged 16 to 65 using the Internet regularly, and 90% of them having shopped online at least once.

Europe

Switzerland

E-commerce