Global B2C e-commerce of goods and services continued to grow significantly last year. The actual growth rate amounted to 24.0% in 2014, which was in line with preceding years. As a result, B2C e-commerce sales reached $ 1,943bn. For 2015, the B2C e-commerce growth rate is expected to decline considerably, as the market is growing more and more mature. However, it will still grow by double digits (around 16%), resulting in a turnover of $ 2,251bn. 

These figures come from the new Global B2C E-commerce Report 2015, which is created by the Ecommerce Foundation, in cooperation with Ecommerce Europe and GfK. In addition, the report is powered by GlobalCollect | Ingenico.

“Another interesting tool to measure the importance of B2C e-commerce on a worldwide scale is the share of e-commerce in the Gross Domestic Product (GPD)”, says Jorij Abraham, Director of the Ecommerce Foundation. “In 2014, 2.64% of the world’s GDP was spent on purchasing goods and services online. At first glance, this does not seem as a lot, but this share has grown by more than 100% since 2010. This indicates the enormous growth of B2C e-commerce over the last few years.”

Just like in the preceding year, Asia-Pacific was the largest e-commerce market in the world in 2014. Its total B2C e-commerce turnover amounted to $ 770.0bn, which was higher than Europe’s ($ 567.0bn) and North America’s ($ 522.9bn). Asia-Pacific’s B2C e-commerce market even widened the gap as it is currently growing at a much faster pace than the others. In 2014, it grew by 44.3%, against 13.9% for Europe and 12.2% for North America.

These large differences are interesting, especially when considering the region’s Internet penetrations. Whereas in the more developed regions of Europe and North America, around 75% of the population is connected to the Internet, only 39% of the Asian-Pacific citizens is able to go online. In combination with the increasing income per capita and improving retail infrastructure, Asia-Pacific’s B2C e-commerce turnover is expected to rise even more strongly in the near future.

Despite the low Internet penetration, Asia-Pacific still has the largest number of e-shoppers. This is because more than half of the world’s population lives in this region. In total, 523.1 million Asian-Pacific citizens purchased goods and/or services through the Internet. In Europe, this number amounted to 273.9 million e-shoppers and in North America to 195.5 million.

North Americans biggest online spenders

With regard to the average spending per e-shopper, North America is clearly in the lead. On average, North American consumers spent $ 2,674 online in 2014, compared to $ 2,070 in Europe and $ 1,472 in Asia-Pacific. However, Asia-Pacific is closing the gap. Its average spending per e-shopper grew by more than 26% last year, against single-digit growths in the other two regions.

China increased its lead

“Asian-Pacific’s strong e-commerce performance is mainly due to the unleashed Chinese e-commerce market,” says Abraham. “The online turnover of this e-commerce giant grew by 63.8% last year, and reached $ 538.1bn. With this, it increased its lead on the American e-commerce market, which grew by 11.7% to $ 482.7bn.”

Behind these two major markets, the United Kingdom ranked third, with a B2C e-commerce turnover of $ 169.0bn. Yet, in terms of average spending per e-shopper, the UK leads the way. In 2014, British e-shoppers each spent $ 4,082 on average. American online shoppers ranked second with $ 2,888, followed by the French with $ 2,126. China is somewhat lagging behind, but at $ 1,703, the average spending per e-shopper increased by more than 55% in 2014. As a result, China is closing the gap here as well.

More worldwide e-commerce facts and figures can be obtained for free by downloading the light version of the Global B2C E-commerce Report 2015 and the free infographic. In addition, the complete report can be ordered through www.ecommerce-europe.eu.