Looking back at 2016, facts and figures makes it clear that international e-commerce continues to grow very strongly. What is also interesting to note is that cross-border e-commerce is growing even stronger.

Now, in 2017, the new year has started and with it a wealth of new e-commerce opportunities. More and more online consumers all over the world are discovering the benefits of being able to compare different markets with each other in order to find the best deals or to find that particular product that is hard to come by at home.

Special e-commerce bonanzas such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Singles’ Day attract more cross-border online consumers every year and are now established as major retail events. You have probably noticed that Chinese giant Alibaba made sales worth USD 17.8 billion in the 21 hours during last year’s Singles’ Day. A substantial percentage of these sales were cross-border. On a global level, every seventh online purchase is said to be a cross-border transaction.

By 2020, it’s expected that well over 2 billion shoppers will be spending 14% of their overall retail spending online, equivalent to a market value of USD 3.4 trillion. Cross-border e-commerce is estimated to show a Compound Annual Growth (CAGR) of 29% up to the year 2020. This is around twice the rate of average domestic growth. And even beyond the year 2020, there are no signs suggesting that this growth rate is going to decrease.

Olof Källgren, Market Information Manager, Direct Link