It’s been an historic year for the online retail industry. Well, in fear of making a rather large understatement, 2020 in general was certainly one for the books!
The global pandemic fast-tracked digital trends and many brick-and-mortar stores were forced to make the quick shift to selling online in order to keep up with consumers and even hope for a lucrative holiday season. So much so, that according to Payoneer’s research into the growth of cross-border sellers, some saw up to an impressive 225% increase in cross-border eCommerce revenue during the 2020 holiday season.
Here we’ll review some of the highlights of this trend and try to understand what may lie behind it.
With more stay-at-home orders around the world, and the widespread buzz that the 2020 holiday shopping season was expected to be the biggest one ever for eCommerce, many cross-border sellers looked for ways to maximize the busy season and ramped up their efforts to do so.
According to one 2020 Holiday Season report, close to 33% of global consumers already began their holiday spending in October. To meet this demand, online retailers also kicked off their campaigns earlier than usual to encourage consumers to shop from home and avoid crowded stores.
It seems their efforts paid off. As seen in the below chart showing those countries where cross-border sellers saw the largest year-over-year growth in eCommerce revenues, there were some clear success stories that we will now take a closer look into.
While eCommerce within Canada has been relatively slow to develop, despite it being an advanced economy, cross-border sellers in Canada have clearly been capitalizing on the surge in online orders across the globe. Where they ordinarily may have been competing with their U.S. counterparts over the border, the pandemic seems to have created a level playing field for them and, with an increasing number of people coming online to buy their holiday season goods, the pie was made big enough for them to grab their slice of the action.
As a result, they reached new highs this past holiday season with a groundbreaking 281% year-over-year increase in cross-border eCommerce revenue, compared to an 89% year-over-year increase back in 2019.
According to Payoneer’s data, cross-border sellers in the U.S. saw a 100% year-over-year increase in eCommerce revenue during the 2020 holiday season, a major jump from 2019 which experienced only a 41% year-on-year revenue growth. Indeed, as the pandemic entered second and even third waves around the world, even larger numbers of global consumers preferred to shop from home to find their ideal holiday gifts and avoid swarming streets and shopping malls. All this helped to contribute to the massive growth in revenue for cross-border online sellers.
Moving over to Europe, as Germany entered their second wave in early November and settled back into yet another lockdown, German cross-border sellers saw a staggering 225% year-over-year increase in eCommerce revenue over the holidays, compared to just a 45% year-over-year increase back in 2019. With even tighter restrictions, it seems that many cross-border sellers looked for ways to take advantage of the busy holiday period that provided such an attractive opportunity for locals to sell across Europe and beyond.
The picture was similar in the Far East too. Despite bringing the corona outbreak relatively under control several months ago, China’s eCommerce market is booming to such a great degree that Chinese sellers saw a 50% year-over-year spike in cross-border revenue, compared to 31% growth during the 2019 holiday season.
It appears that the spike in revenue may well have come amidst another shopping trend – live-streaming eCommerce. Through this channel, major influencers and brands broadcast their products in real-time via social media or live-streaming platforms and could quite possibly have helped contribute to China’s uptick in e-retail sales.
Staying in the east, while it was noticeable that the Japanese eCommerce market slowed down during the holiday season over the last few years, 2020, surprisingly, showed signs of recovery. Revenues for cross-border eCommerce sellers saw a 31% year-over-year increase during the recent holiday season, compared to a 16% year-over-year decrease back in 2019. It seems that the global pandemic caused even those markets who were lagging to enjoy the global wave of popularity for online buying.
Over the past year, eCommerce cross-border sellers had no choice but to quickly prepare for a holiday season that was widely predicted to be a remarkable one. After analyzing our own data, it seems that such industry experts were spot on with their forecasts. The pandemic has truly caused eCommerce worldwide to skyrocket in 2020, resulting in increased revenues for both local and global sellers over the holiday season.
While this pandemic may still leave many with much uncertainty, one thing is for sure. eCommerce is here to stay, and the surge in demand is not just a temporary craze. So, if you’re thinking about selling globally or already do so, now could well be the time to expand your business into new markets and take advantage of the latest global shopping trends.
With Payoneer’s cross-border payments solution, eCommerce sellers like you can easily and securely get paid from leading marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, Wish and more. We take the hassle out of international payments so that you can focus on growing your business globally.