Over the next few years, the number of online shoppers in Latin America is expected to grow 20% a year, and business-to-consumer e-commerce revenue is expected to increase to U.S. $30 billion by 2013, according to a survey by German research firm yStats.com.
Brazil dominates online retail in Latin America. The number of online shoppers has shown double-digit growth. YStats.com’s report shows that some Brazilians shop frequently and that almost one quarter of online customers made more than 10 online purchases in the first half of 2011.
In line with this trend, B2C e-commerce revenue has rapidly increased. In the first half of 2011 alone, more revenue was generated than in all of 2008.
Brazil also has the largest share of Internet users in Latin America, followed by Mexico, Argentina, Columbia, Venezuela, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay and Paraguay.
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Argentina and Mexico are also important B2C e-commerce markets in the region, while in Chile, B2C e-commerce revenue increased from 2009 to 2010 by more than 30%, yStats.com reported.
In Columbia, although travel websites were visited by more than 3 million people in June, the survey said there is still much room for growth, given that only 5% of Internet users shopped online in 2010.
The report also noted that Paraguay remains one of the least established B2C e-commerce markets, while in Peru only 13% of all households had Internet access in 2010 and B2C e-commerce is still underdeveloped, with Supermercados Wong being the biggest player in this segment.
In Uruguay, half of all Internet users were using the Internet on a daily basis and in 2010, there were almost 400,000 online shoppers. In Venezuela, the number of Internet users totaled nearly 20 million in 2010. However, according to the report, B2C e-commerce is still not widely established due to the fact that the population has limited access to information and communication technologies.
Group shopping also continues to soar in popularity, the survey found. In April 2011, Groupon was the leading competitor in this segment in Latin America, followed by Groupalia, Peixe Urbano and Clickon.
Brazil’s most successful e-commerce retailers in September were BuscaPé, Mercado Livre and B2W. In Argentina, Falabella and Mercado Libre rate highly, and in Ecuador, Almacenes de Prati is one of the most successful B2C e-commerce players.
