Digital economy and technology

The Internet offers businesses a new form of "shop window" that is visible Worldwide and can be open for orders 24/7. Their customers - including businesses, consumers, and government entities - increasingly embrace the convenience, choice, and price advantages offered by e‑commerce ordering for both goods and services. As a result, the value of businesses' e‑commerce sales has grown rapidly, based on the statistics available across 36 developed and developing economies which account for two thirds of global GDP.
This trend accelerated during the COVID‑19 pandemic (2020-2023), when both businesses and their customers turned to e-commerce to mitigate disruption to other sales channels, including in-store sales and business-to-business sales made in-person.

E-commerce ordering is relatively widely offered as a sales channel by businesses in many developed economies. Although adoption and the value of e-commerce sales are still increasing (with the latter also affected by changes in prices for goods and services sold), digital ordering will have already been implemented by many of the businesses for which it is most suited.

By contrast, many developing economies are experiencing rapid digitalisation, including of ordering processes. Over 2016-2023, the average annual growth rate of e‑commerce sales across the developing economies for which figures are available was almost double that of developed economies.

Based on the limited e-commerce data available, covering 36 economies, the United States of America, Europe, and China are the largest e-commerce markets. Consumer demand for goods and services is one important factor. However, in most economies for which details are available, business-to-business (B2B) e‑commerce sales account for the majority of e-commerce sales by value. The total number and value of e-commerce transactions within an economy includes these B2B sales of goods and services for use as intermediate inputs by businesses, as well as e-commerce sales of the products they are used as inputs for.
The existence within the United States, Europe, and China of highly integrated, complex, and digitalized supply chains for manufacturing, retail, and other business activities, as well as these economies' integration in global value chains, is therefore a key driver for the extent of e‑commerce observed.