According to projections in a UNCTAD study published on Saturday, the drastic growth in e-commerce caused by COVID 19 raised online retail sales' share of overall retail sales from 16% to 19% in 2020.

As part of a two-day intergovernmental meeting on evaluating e-commerce and the digital economy, UNCTAD released the paper, “Forecasts of global e-commerce 2019 and tentative evaluation of COVID-19 effect on online retail 2020.”

Online retail revenues increased significantly in many countries, with the Republic of Korea accounting for the largest share at 25.9 % in 2020, up from 20.8 % the previous year.

The pandemic has resulted in mixed fortunes for certain e-commerce businesses, changing the fortunes of firms providing services such as ride-hailing and flight. According to the most recent available figures, global e-commerce revenues increased by 4% in 2019 to $26.7 trillion. This covers both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions and is equal to 30% of global GDP that year.

“These figures demonstrate the increasing relevance of online events. They also highlight the importance of such knowledge for countries, especially developing ones, as they reconstruct their economies in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Shamika Sirimanne, UNCTAD's director of technology and logistics.

According to the UNCTAD survey, the COVID-19 pandemic has also culminated in mixed fortunes for leading B2C e-commerce firms. Data for the top 13 e-commerce firms, ten of those are from China and the US, reveal a significant turnaround of fortunes for network firms that deliver services including ride-hailing and travel (Table 2).

They all saw a significant fall in gross merchandise volume (GMV) and similar drops in level. Expedia fell from fifth to eleventh position in 2019, Booking Holdings from sixth to twelfth, and Airbnb, which announced its public offering in 2020, from eleventh to thirteenth.

Despite the decrease in GMV for service providers, overall GMV for the top 13 B2C e-commerce firms increased by 20.5 % in 2020, exceeding that of 2019. (17.9 %). Shopify (up 95.6%) and Walmart posted especially strong gains (72.4 %). In 2020, the top 13 corporations' B2C GMV totaled $2.9 trillion.

The size of global B2B e-commerce in 2019 is estimated to be $21.8 trillion, accounting for 82% of all e-commerce, which involves all purchases from online retail portals and electronic data interchange (EDI) transactions. The US maintained its lead in the global e-commerce industry, ahead of Japan and China.

B2C e-commerce revenues were expected to be $4.9 trillion in 2019, an increase of 11% from 2018. China, the US, and the UK emerged as the top three countries in terms of B2C e-commerce revenues.

In 2019, cross-border B2C e-commerce totaled $440 billion, a 9% growth over 2018. According to the UNCTAD survey, the proportion of online shoppers creating cross-border transactions increased from 20% in 2017 to 25% in 2019.

About the size of e-commerce firms' fortunes, a World Benchmarking Alliance index published in December last year ranked them poorly in terms of digital participation. The index listed 100 digital businesses, including 14 e-commerce firms, based on how they relate to digital technology access, digital skills development, confidence building, and creativity.

As opposed to businesses in other emerging sectors, such as hardware or telecommunications networks, e-commerce firms performed poorly. eBay, was ranked 49th among e-commerce companies. Overall, e-commerce firms earned a score of 20 out of a maximum 100. According to the UNCTAD survey, one of the key reasons for the weak performance is that e-commerce firms are relatively new, having been established in the last two decades.

According to the paper, “these companies have become more dependent on customers instead of interacting with a diverse community of stakeholders and compiling metrics on their environmental, social, and governance productivity”.

Even so, there are few encouraging signs. Several e-commerce firms, for example, provide free learning to entrepreneurs on how to market digitally, with some training aimed directly at disadvantaged populations including those with disabilities or ethnic minorities.