India has ranked 73rd out of 152 countries in a business-to-consumer E-Commerce index that measures an economy’s preparedness to support online shopping, moving seven places up in the list.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s Business-to-Consumer (B2C) E-commerce Index 2019 has been topped by the Netherlands for the second consecutive year.
European nations hold eight of the top 10 spots on the index, which ranks 152 countries on their readiness to engage in online commerce. The only non-European countries on the top 10 list are Singapore (3) and Australia (10).
The index scores 152 nations on their readiness for online shopping, worth an estimated USD 3.9 trillion globally in 2017, up 22 per cent from the previous year.
India is ranked 73rd in the 2019 index, slightly improving its position from 80 in 2018 and 83 in 2017. According to the report, in India Internet shoppers as a share of Internet users was 11 per cent and Internet shoppers as a share of population 3 per cent in 2017.
Faring better than India are countries such as Iran, ranked 42nd, Kazakhstan (57), Azerbaijan(62), Vietnam(64) and Tunisia (70). Switzerland is ranked second on the list, followed by Singapore, finland, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Ireland, Germany and Australia. In 2017, an estimated 1.3 billion people, or one quarter of the world’s population aged 15 years and older, shopped online. This represented a 12 per cent increase over 2016. The share of Internet users that are shopping online is much lower in countries at low levels of income, pointing connectivity but also in other areas, the report added.
