If it can be said that something was affected by the crisis caused by the corona virus epidemic that is still going on at the beginning of last year, then it is e-commerce.
More than usual, people bought online clothing, but above all food, which at some point recorded a growth of more than 200 percent, while sales of clothing and footwear grew by 100 percent, technical devices by 50 percent. Thus, the income from e-commerce in Serbia last year, according to Statista, was 395 million euros, and there were as many as 3.3 million customers on the Internet.
“The past year has brought one very positive thing, it has taught us that we can change habits and that something we could not understand before is now becoming our normality. Shopping online has become first a necessity, and then a normality,” Zorana Milidrag, president of the eCommerce Association of Serbia, told Danas. Many people, as she says, tried shopping online for the first time due to circumstances, closing shops, and a large number of newcomers accepted e-commerce as a new normality. Milidrag points out how the consciousness of customers has changed, but also of all those who did not believe that e-commerce works in Serbia.
“Is there a problem, there is just like in any business segment, only in e-commerce you can see more and more. I believe that 2020 is the year that changed e-commerce in Serbia forever,” Milidrag notes.
Depending on the level of development of the digital business, the growth of already existing retailers last year, she says, ranged between 200 and 400 percent.
“There is also a large number of newly opened online stores. I must mention that more serious sales growth required more serious preparation. Companies that had developed processes, a good web shop and an efficient team managed to skip several years of organic growth. Through e-commerce, as everywhere in the world, techniques, clothes, shoes and books are sold the most,” our interlocutor emphasizes and adds that during the lockdown, the sale of exercise equipment at home, supplementation and food came to the fore.
Zorana Milidrag says that the best thing that has happened is that the “forced” growth has led to long-term growth, but also higher expectations among customers.
“We’ve got what we want, and that’s customers – it’s now up to retailers and everyone else involved in e-commerce to keep those customers by improving their business on a daily basis,” she said. Milidrag says that every product can be sold over the Internet as long as the buyer sees his benefit in it, and that it is up to the trader to present the product in the best possible way.
“If you have a bad web shop and bad service, not even the best product will be sold. It is a big surprise for me, and I am very proud that customers continued to buy online even after the opening of physical stores. This is a real victory for all of us who have been investing in the improvement of ecommerce in Serbia and the region for many years,” Milidrag points out.
According to the data of the Republic Bureau of Statistics, the largest number of buyers on the Internet bought clothes and sports products (52 percent) and sports equipment (26 percent), a fifth home appliances, slightly smaller computers, tablets, but also furniture and toys. More than eight percent of customers ordered food from restaurants online, which is why delivery companies could boast of a hard but successful year.
“Last year, we increased many times compared to 2019. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to share accurate data due to the nature of the business, because we work in a very competitive environment, but the growth recorded during the state of emergency continued later,” Marina Mandic, marketing manager at Wolt, told Danas. She notes that restaurant food is still the most ordered, but also that an increasing number of users are opting for groceries from the market, cosmetics and other products that they added to the application during the previous year.
This company opened a delivery in Subotica a few days ago, but due to the expansion of the business, they also introduced the option of paying in cash.
“In the coming months, we will expand to other cities in Serbia, and our goal is to become a One stop shop by the end of 2021, where customers will be able to order everything they need, which will be delivered to them in 30 to 35 minutes,” says Mandic from Wolt, which employs 2,200 people in 23 countries around the world.
Online commerce is also growing in the European Union, where almost 90 percent of residents over the age of 16 and under the age of 74 use the Internet. Only one in 10 residents in the Netherlands, Denmark or the UK did not shop online last year, more than 80 percent of citizens of Germany, Sweden, Ireland bought online, while the countries with the fewest online shoppers are Bulgaria (42 percent), Romania (45) and Italy (49). Although Romania is among the countries where e-commerce is the least widespread, in recent years it has recorded the highest growth in the EU of as much as 27 percent, and this type of shopping is also growing in Croatia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, Danas reports.
