After two years of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, electronic commerce continues to accelerate its steps in the digital transformation of consumers and companies. According to the E-commerce Observatory 2021-2022 report of the Peruvian Chamber of Electronic Commerce (Capece), this industry in Peru grew 55%, moving 9,300 million dollars last year.
“E-commerce has continued the trend of continuing to grow. In general, there was an increase of more than 55% (compared to 2020) driven by purchases through digital wallets. Although this shows an accelerated increase, there is still a long way to go to achieve the democratization of electronic commerce in companies in the interior of the country”, said the president of Capece, Helmut Cáceda.
According to the union, at the end of last year, 41.8% of Peruvians (13.9 million) made purchases online. “Let us remember that before the pandemic only 18.6% of Peruvians (6 million) bought online. With Covid-19, this has accelerated, ”he specified.
The Capece study also pointed out that online shoppers increased in the regions, growing by 30% last year compared to 2020, although their purchase frequency is much lower than in the capital.
The report mentioned that in 2020 there were more than 260,000 businesses that made online sales, but today there are already 300,000. “Of that total, more than 90,000 have a transactional website (virtual store, mobile application, etc.)”, Cáceda pointed out.
He added that 50% of companies that sell in the online channel are from the regions, their transactions are less than the capital.
“This spontaneous digitization of micro-entrepreneurs, due to the health crisis, has helped the country improve its position in the digital competitiveness index, moving from position 61 out of 63 in 2019 to position 55 at the end of 2020, climbing six positions. in this world ranking”, he said.
According to Helmut Cáceda, e-commerce gained a 45% share of card consumption in 2021, when before the pandemic this industry only represented 12.5 percent.
“We see that more and more people use their card to make purchases through the online channel. However, the surprise of the year has been the adoption and growth of digital wallets in B2C payments”, he detailed.
Despite the takeoff as a result of the pandemic, online sales only represent 4.5% of commerce in general, while in countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) it exceeds 9 percent.
“We call on the government to reconsider its public policy initiatives, and not compare us with countries that have been years of digital maturity for us, but, on the contrary, maintain an open dialogue with the private sector to draft laws that really boost the industry instead of holding it back. There is a lot of work to do”, he referred.
As a result of the pandemic, electronic commerce had a preponderant growth, but there is still a long way to go. This is indicated by the study of the E-commerce Maturity Index in Peru, highlighting that 43.8% of these businesses are in an “apprentice” stage.