They also said the local e-commerce market reached a maximum level of competitiveness in 2022 due to more and more stores being created or moving online.
Digital commerce in Romania is going through a resettlement stage, in which the growth rate is no longer as spectacular as in the2020-2021 period, especially in the context of high inflation over the last months which prompted Romanians to spend less. In total, according to ARMO and GpeC estimates, the Romanian ecommerce market in Romania will grow by approximately 10% compared to 2021, reaching almost EUR7 billion, as per the analysis conducted by the companies EuPlatesc.ro – electronic payment processor, Limitless Agency – digital marketing agency, NextUp Solutions – provider of ERP and other software solutions for online stores, VTEX – the Enterprise Digital Commerce Platform and White Image – email marketing agency.
Although the growth pace is slow, the digital commerce market has become much more competitive and brands and retailers are more focused on customer attraction and retention strategies, according to Cristi Movila, Eastern Europe General Manager within VTEX, the Enterprise Digital Commerce Platform, with which brands and retailers manage their commerce operations globally.
“In 2022, the exuberance of the pandemic regarding e-commerce growth has diminished. For the online commerce, 2022 was a year of post-pandemic resettlement, after a period of great growth, and the feeling of economic crisis has been increasingly felt since the second half of the year (…), said Andrei Georgescu, co-founder of White Image, the largest email marketing agency in the country.
In terms of purchasing behavior, Romanian consumers were more frugal in 2022 than in other years and focused more on less expensive products.
According to data from the Limitless Agency, the most purchased products were from the IT&C, fashion, car, home & garden, books & bookstore, jewelry, food, and beauty categories. The fields of fashion, beauty, grocery, HoReCa, home & deco and IT&C have seen growth in 2022, according to estimates by VTEX representatives.
As a payment method, cash on delivery is still preferred, but paying online with a bank card is increasing spectacularly. “Considering that electronic payment is more and more secure and simplified, the level of confidence of Romanian consumers in online card payment methods will increase even more, we are going to balance the cash-on-payment-online payment balance, and in the near future the electronic payment method will dominate”, explains Ștefan Suceveanu, co-founder of EuPlatesc.ro, one of the largest electronic payment processors on the market.
EuPlatesc.ro data show that Romanians are increasingly interested in shopping online and prefer to have as few applications installed on their phone as possible to carry out the periodic operations they need. The overall average annual value of an online transaction is around RON300.
Investments in automation for increased business efficiency and solutions to improve the online shopping experience were representative for the ecommerce market in 2022. According to VTEX, marketplace development was one of the main investment trends in 2022, given that many companies have reached maturity and are looking to scale their business. Also, the B2B ecommerce segment is a new channel that has gained momentum and continues to grow.
At the same time, there are more and more investments in software solutions for managing processes, stocks, and orders. According to NextUp Solutions data, this year, retailers have invested between EUR1,000 to EUR5,000 in software for automatic order processing, being particularly interested in functionalities such as real-time updating of products displayed in online stores to avoid the risk of over-shop (ordering an unavailable product), constantly updating the products in stock, and receiving notifications when the stock is close to zero, in order to generate new orders to suppliers.