South Korea's e-commerce retail sales share will rank second in the world in 2021

According to a report released by South Korea's SMEs and Startups, South Korea's local e-commerce sales reached US$104.1 billion in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 19.5%.

According to eMarketer's forecast, in 2021, 28.9% of South Korea's retail sales will come from e-commerce, and the proportion of e-commerce in total retail sales will rank second in the world.

According to eMarketer's forecast data, this proportion is second only to China (52%), which ranks first, and slightly higher than the United Kingdom (28.3%), which ranks third.

The recent boom in e-commerce market share in South Korea is due to the following factors :

Live Broadcast

E-commerce is booming in South Korea , with social media and live streaming becoming new ways for people to shop .

South Korea’s big social networks have been trying to add a “buy button” to their operations for years . It wasn’t until last year that social commerce started to catch on . And real-time commerce is almost a type of social commerce by definition . So in South Korea, well-known Korean IT companies such as Naver and Kakao Talk have also entered the real-time shopping field.

But they face competition from venture capital-backed startups such as NTWRK and Grip , whose apps were downloaded 895,000 times in South Korea in 2020. Not to be outdone, Coupang, South Korea's largest e-commerce platform , also entered the field last year.

Coronavirus

Although the Korean economy was not very prosperous last year, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic , South Korea's e-commerce market grew by nearly 20% last year, ranking fifth in the world.

Although South Korea has contained the threat of the coronavirus much faster and more vigorously than any other country, it remains true that consumer behavior has changed as a result of the pandemic. Online shopping has surged due to the virus lockdown, and in the long run, this online shopping method will become a long-term preference and habit for Korean consumers.

In South Korea, thanks to strong online sales (up 18.4%), even though physical sales fell 3.6%, South Korea's retail sales in 2020 still increased by 5.5% compared to 2019. In 2021, I believe that the development of e-commerce in South Korea will maintain a good growth state!

South Korea

Retail Sales

E-commerce