Switzerland climbs to the top of the global e-commerce index, Europe still among the world's top

Recently, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ( UNCTAD) released a report on the 2020 Business-to-Consumer (B2C) E-commerce Index, showing that Switzerland has jumped to the top of the global e-commerce index for the first time, replacing the Netherlands .

The index rates 152 countries on their readiness for online shopping, including the security of their internet servers, the reliability of their postal services and infrastructure, internet users, and the proportion of the population with accounts at financial institutions or mobile payment service providers.

The index shows that Singapore and Hong Kong are the only two non-European economies in the top 10, and Europe remains the most e-commerce prepared region , with a huge gap between it and the countries with the lowest levels of readiness .

“ The e-commerce divide remains wide . Even among G20 countries, the percentage of people shopping online ranges from 3% in India to 87% in the United Kingdom , ” said Shamika N Sirimanne, director of UNCTAD’s department that compiles the annual index .

The top 10 developing countries are all from Asia and are high-income or upper-middle-income economies. At the other end of the spectrum , the least developed countries make up 18 of the bottom 20.

The world’s two largest B2C e-commerce markets, China and the United States, rank 55th and 12th, respectively, in the index. Although both countries lead in a number of absolute measures, they lag behind in comparisons.

For example, the United States has a lower internet penetration rate than any of the top ten countries, while China ranks 87th in the world on this indicator . Switzerland, which ranks first , had an internet penetration rate of 97% in 2019. In terms of online shopping penetration, the United States ranks 12th and China ranks 33rd.

In addition, in Canada , the United States and some European countries, more than 70% of adults shop online, but in most low- and middle-income countries, this proportion is well below 10%.

Sirimanne said the COVID-19 pandemic has made it more urgent for lagging countries to close the gap and strengthen their e-commerce plans . The index ranking also emphasizes that governments need to make more efforts to ensure that more people can participate in e-commerce and further promote its development .

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