LAHORE: The rise of e-commerce in the past few years enabled through the internet and smartphone penetration especially in urban areas of Pakistan has considerably facilitated the online sale of certain categories, a statement said.
The categories include fashion, travel, and IT, which account for the largest proportion of online transactions – 40, 31 and 29 percent of consumers, respectively. The 2018 Nielsen Connected Commerce Report, which looks at consumers’ online purchasing habits, reported that 82 percent of consumers who have access to the internet in urban areas have made a purchase online, up six percent compared to 2017. The report also revealed that the categories posing significant growth in e-commerce activity include restaurant deliveries, beauty and personal care products, and books and music (24, 22 and 28 percent of online consumers said that they made a purchase.
“Travel, fashion and IT are typical categories for first-time online shoppers, but as their familiarisation, comfort and trust levels increase, their category range expands,” Quratulain Ibrahim, managing director for Pakistan at Nielsen said in the statement.