MINSK, 14 March (BelTA) - The number of online stores in Belarus rose by 20% in 2018, Inna Gavrilchik, the head of consumer protection and advertising monitoring at the Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade, said at a pres conference, BelTA has learned.
She noted that e-commerce in Belarus has been developing very rapidly. “A total of 19,400 online stores were registered in the Trade Register as of 1 January 2019, which represents a 20% increase,” she said.
The turnover of online stores has surged more than 30 times in the period from 2010 to 2017.
With regard to the structure of online purchases of Belarusians, most of them are made in the Miscellaneous section (goods not included in other segments). Going in further detail, the leaders are household equipment and consumer electronics, car goods and also health and beauty products, Inna Gavrilchik said.
More online purchases are made on mobile phones, Inna Gavrilchik noted. “For example, in 2016 mobile shopping accounted for 20-25% of online purchases. I can suppose that today this volume is even higher,” she added. According to one study, not only Belarusian citizens but also foreigners go mobile shopping on Belarusian websites. The most active buyers in this segment are representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.
