Online Shopping Grows by Double Digits in South Korea in October

Online shopping in South Korea continues its upward trend despite the uncertain times seen in 2020. The country has maintained double-digit growth in online shopping in October 2020 amid the continued Covid-19 pandemic, official data revealed on Thursday. This data reflects the high penetration of e-commerce and the internet in the region. It is also an encouraging sign for market players who wish to grow big in the online sector. The data has again underlined that South Korea remains a key market and a hotspot for cyberspace across the world.

Pandemic boosts online shopping in South Korea

The overall contribution of online shopping was 14.24 trillion won ($13 billion) in October in South Korea, Xinhua news agency quoted Statistics Korea as saying. The numbers look even more impressive when considering that this number is 20% more than last year.

However, a key point to note is that the growth rate was down from a 30.7 percent increase in the previous month. But the good news for the market is that online shopping has continued to increase in double figures. This increase is primarily due to the change in consumer behavior inflicted by the pandemic.

The pandemic has forced people to refrain from outside activities, including offline shopping. To ensure safety, people have preferred to stay at home and shop through online channels.

The ease of online shopping is a critical factor in its growth. The ease of online shopping today has become hassle-free, secure, and quick. Also, several portals help customers in making better purchases online. Websites devoted to specific services list down the top companies in the market and provide all crucial information about these companies to the customers.

Such sites have helped customers in availing various services online and have thus aided the stratospheric growth of this sector. Portals such as masakor.com are popular among netizens.

Most significant contributors to online shopping

Food delivery services by online orders is another area that has seen a massive surge in South Korea. Due to the pandemic, people have opted to eat at home rather than eat at restaurants. The sector saw an incredible growth of 71.6 percent in October from a year earlier. Simultaneously, there is an increase of 43.8 % in online purchases of food and beverage.

The sector of consumer electronics has also received the Midas touch of the online world. Online purchases of consumer electronics and household items grew by 39.6 percent and 38.8 percent, respectively, in the month.

The uncertain times during the pandemic forced people across the globe to cut their spendings. However, South Korean citizens have continued to spend on culture and leisure services. South Koreans have used the medium of online transactions to spend on culture and leisure services. Transactions in this sector have doubled in October. The government’s new lenient directives on social distancing are a crucial reason behind this massive increase.

Smartphones bossing the world of the internet

Smartphones have replaced PCs as the preferred mode of accessing the internet, and the recent data underline this trend. According to the data, mobile shopping using smartphones increased by 22.9 percent from a year earlier to 9.54 trillion won in October.

This data published in Xinhua news agency has highlighted how crucial South Korea is for the e-commerce world. The South Asian nation has shown a constant surge in cyberspace in recent times, and these latest figures have proved that the pandemic hasn’t affected the country heavily, and the citizens are still high on spending.

The coming years should also see the same growth in online shopping as consumers have now gotten accustomed to cyberspace’s ease and services.