Online shopping in Belarus is getting more popular with every year. In 2019 Belarusian buyers were spending on average USD 60 per sale (127 Belarus rubles), KP.by reported.

What do Belarus online shoppers buy in local Internet stores?

The report is based on data provided by the online shopping platform Deal.by, so it doesn’t include other purchases made on websites like Aliexpress that offers cheap products made in China.

• Last year the average sale in the online store was higher: 141 Belarusian Ruble ($60).
• The average check in 2019: 127 BYN ($67).
• In total, there were over 700 thousand sales made in 2019.

Belarusians were actively buying chargers and batteries for mobiles phones: The growth in sales in these groups was by 162% and 90% respectively. Electronic cables are also in demand, which has grown in 2019 by 46%.

But the most popular group of goods in the online store is for home and garden. Electronics was #2, while goods for kids scores the third place.

Clothes aren’t in high demand on in the local Internet stores and apparently people prefer to buy such goods via foreign sites.

The demand for online groceries jumped by 28% in 2019.

Internet shoppers don’t want to pay online

Surprisingly, only 22% of online shoppers paid at the point of sale on the Internet, while the other 78% of buyers had chosen to pay on delivery. This is actually a problem for sellers, because courier services take a few days to transfer funds. It is also a problem if the person ordered goods but the parcel never gets collected. Thus, online stores find hard to develop and reinvest the profits, it slows them down.

The buyers also have a reason to worry: What if the seller gets the money and never delivers goods?

Other popular online stores that offer stock on behalf of multiple sellers keep funds in escrow, which is released once the goods are delivered. In this case both parties have assurance: The buyer knows that the product should be as described and shipped promptly, while the seller gets the funds as soon as goods are delivered.

This change should be possibly to implement in 2020, once a new legislation

In fact, sales of local Internet stores aren’t that high in the total spending of online buyers. Belarus Post had been processing about 30 thousand parcels daily a few months ago. It is nearly 11 million parcels a year! Compare this with 700 thousand sold by local Internet stores.

Read also:

• Belarus Women Limited in Online Shopping
• Most Ukrainians shop online
• How many cars per 1000 people are in Belarus?
• Are Belarus women similar to Russian or Ukrainian?