The Booming Trend of Online Shopping in Pakistan

Gone are the days when one “shopped till they dropped”, thanks to thriving online business one can now get whatever they want delivered to their doorstep with just one click of the mouse.

Ever since online stores started taking over the internet, the brick-and-mortar ones have witnessed a decrease in sales. Though online shopping has brought a lot of convenience for customers it has left retailers with stores more than a little concerned.

Just like the rest of the world, online shoppers in Pakistan too have seemed to increase incredibly over the past few years. A recent research carried out by Picodi.com gives stats regarding online shoppers, along with answering key questions such as how much money is spent by Pakistanis, what kind of devices they use and how does the activity change over the year.

Analyzing last year’s data found that Pakistanis too have joined the trend of mobile commerce as half of the transactions were made solely through mobile devices. Pakistanis also tend to spend more when buying through smartphone. The average order value last year was found to be Rs 9,695, as compared to Rs 9,164 made using desktops and Rs 4,789 through tablets. Also, the type of device mattered too since iOS users spent more than Android ones; Rs 14,510 and Rs 7,467, respectively, on average.

Interestingly, the report showed that there were also more purchases made by Pakistani men (59%) in contrast to women (41%). As expected, more than half of the online shoppers (56%) were people aged between 25 and 34. They were followed by people aged 18-24 (23%) and 35-44 (14%), the remaining 7% consumers were over 45.

According to the research, Pakistani shoppers tend to shop more in December with an average order value of Rs 9,945, followed by November and October with Rs 9,577 and Rs 8,348 average value respectively.

As of for the shopping activity, November had the highest number of transactions (19.3%) for the year. The second busiest month was October with 11.3% number of transactions and then December with 8.8%. The lowest number of shopping activity was recorded in March with average order value amounting to Rs 6,320. Mobile users are most active on Monday, whereas, desktop users prefer Friday, but both of them prefer shopping during peak sale between 12:00pm and 06:00pm.

As per the analysis, the most popular categories for online Pakistani shoppers included clothing, followed by food, footwear, travel and electronics.

After analyzing data from 35 countries, it was discovered that Pakistan is among those countries with mobile shopping on the rise with 44% orders made on mobile devices. Peru made it to the top of the list with 76% of online purchases through smartphones, followed by Nigeria and Thailand at 62% and 56% correspondingly.

However, as for the average order value, Pakistanis, with their $67 (Rs 9,310), rank lower than the world’s average, which is $79. The most money per order was spent by Emiratis, astounding amount of $218, whereas, Hungarians and Turks came in at the bottom with $32 and $38 respectively.

All in all, with the passage of time, online shopping has seen a great rise with more to be expected in coming years. With the feasibility of ordering things online with the luxury to sit at home, online shopping is for sure a treat for people all across the world.