The value of EUR1.8 billion represents only etail (tangible goods sold online) and does not include services, bill payments, plane tickets, event tickets, hotel reservations, travel etc, which, if added, would considerably increase the value of the total online shopping market in Romania.
GPeC has been the main e-commerce event in Romania for 12 years, which also gathers and publishes the official report on Romanian e-commerce market every year – The Romanian E-Commerce Market Report.
According to statistic data, last year, the number of Internet users rose from 11 million to 11.2 million and the internet penetration rate increased to 58%, from 56% in 2015.
At the end of 2016, mobile commerce accounted for 35-40% of online shopping orders, versus 25-30% in 2015, while smartphone penetration rate grew significantly, to 70%, compared with 50% in 2015.
Therefore, the top Romanian online shops reported significant increases in mobile device traffic: over 50% of online shops visits come from mobile devices.
However, according to Consumer Report 2016, Romanian people do not use mobile phones primarily for online shopping, but for social networking, e-mail, content video viewing, browsing and gaming.
Mobile will continue to be the main focus for 2017 as well, so that Romanian online shops have optimized their websites for mobile devices.
Wage hike, VAT decrease and price cuts were the main factors which contributed to the growth of the Romanian economy in 2016, boosting the e-commerce market as well. On average, a Romanian online buyer purchased online 8.4 times during 2016 – increasing from 8.2 times in 2015 and 8.1 times in 2014.
Only for Black Friday (November 2016), Romanians bought products online totaling EUR130 million, versus EUR100 million for Black Friday 2015.
As for online card payments, the total volume grew 44.9% on the year in 2016, to approximately EUR745 million, compared with EUR514 million in 2015.
Romanians chose to pay online by card especially for services and less for etail, where the card payments percentage is similar to 2015, approximately 6-7%. The preferred payment method for Romanian etail continues to be cash on delivery – approximately 90% of orders are paid cash on delivery, while 2-3% of payments are other payment methods such as online banking, micropayments by SMS etc.
Consumption growth also triggered the growth of the average order value on Visa cards, which increased from EUR40 in 2015 to EUR50 in 2016.
According to Visa data, Romanians use card payments online to pay bills, to buy products online and to pay for telecom services.
The top of e-commerce categories in 2016 remained unchanged compared with 2015: Electro-IT&C, Fashion & Beauty, Home & Deco and Baby, Kids and Toys.
Compared with 2015, the average value of a transaction decreased for all the above-mentioned categories with one exception, Home & Deco, whose average order value doubled.
The information sources for the report are the following companies and market researches: 2Performant, Breeze Mobile, Consumer Report 2016, GPeC, Internet World Stats, mobilPay, RomCard, Visa Romania.
GPeC is the most important e-commerce event in Romania and the only online event developing for 8 months every year.