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Worldwide e-commerce sales to increase nearly 20 percent in 2014

Business-to-consumer e-commerce sales worldwide will reach $1.47 trillion in 2014 according to new figures from eMarketer, increasing nearly 20 percent over 2013.

July 24, 2014

Business-to-consumer e-commerce sales worldwide will reach $1.47 trillion in 2014, according to new figures from eMarketer, increasing nearly 20 percent over 2013. As Internet use continues to mature across the world, e-commerce growth will slow over time, settling around 10 percent by the end of the forecast period. However, with sales reaching $2.356 trillion in 2018, a 10 percent growth rate would still represent more than $200 billion new dollars that year.

eMarketer's definition for B2C e-commerce sales includes products and services such as leisure and unmanaged business travel, ordered or booked via the Internet on any device.

On a regional basis, North America — which includes only the U.S. and Canada — will remain the leader in B2C e-commerce market share in 2014, accounting for one-third of the dollars spent on digital purchases worldwide. Previously, eMarketer had forecast that Asia-Pacific would surpass North America this year, but full year data from 2013 as well as Q1 2014 data showed China's B2C e-commerce growth slowing sooner than expected.

According to the new forecast, Asia-Pacific is now expected to become the leading region for e-commerce sales in 2015, representing a 33.4 percent share next year, compared to 31.7 percent in North America and 24.6 percent Western Europe. These three regions will continue to take more than 90 percent of the global e-commerce market throughout the forecast period.

The increase of e-commerce sales in the Asia-Pacific region is tied to a growing base of digital buyers, and as more new buyers come online, naturally sales will rise. However, by the end of the forecast period, nearly 70 percent of Internet users will be purchasing items on digital devices in Western Europe and North America vs. just more than 50 percent in Asia-Pacific.

Buyer penetration in Asia-Pacific translates to the largest number of consumers, but the region is far more fragmented than North America and Western Europe. In the latter two regions, e-commerce continues to grow at double digit rates, and will do so for several more years. In these mature markets, this points to the fact that individual buyers are making purchases more frequently and with higher order values. In addition, consumer behaviors are relatively consistent across countries in both regions.

Conversely, disparate consumer behaviors across Asia-Pacific countries make the region more difficult to compare as a single unit. First and foremost, China alone will make up more than half of all the region's B2C e-commerce sales this year, and by 2018, its share will be approximately 70 percent. Further, while Australia and Japan rival markets such as the U.S., U.K. and Western Europe in buyer penetration, the two differ greatly in terms of total buyers and commercial infrastructure. In markets such as India and Indonesia, there are large absolute numbers of digital buyers, but many are new to the market. Instead of buying high ticket items, new digital buyers tend to wet their feet with less costly purchases, due to product availability or income constraints.