E-commerce outside of Europe achieved double-digit growth

The Middle East and the Maghreb countries are doing surprisingly well in e-commerce. In any case, better than Europe, where most countries show a growth rate of less than 10%.

Those who want to develop their business cannot stay focused on Europe exclusively. They should in fact urgently explore the opportunities in the Middle East, the Maghreb countries, Africa, but also Russia. There, online markets are doing really well, as recently reported by E-Commerce Europe. These regions show double-digit growth, while most European countries are below 10%.

One thing you cannot forget is that one of the first new gTLDs, for which a Registry Agreement was signed last week, is the IDN شبكة., “shabaka”, or Internet in Arabic. Arabic is spoken in 20 countries in the Middles East and North Africa, by a total of 380 million people. So, if you want to enter these key markets, you will definitely need a domain in this new gTLD.

In addition to the Middle East, there are other parts of the world where e-commerce is doing well, as long as you show flexibility and inventiveness. In Africa, for instance, most payments are still made in cash and people do not trust online payments. At a recent e-commerce conference in Lagos, an alternative payment method has thus been approved, in order to convince people who do not believe that what they order will actually be delivered to them. For these people, a POD (Pay On Delivery) system has been developed: buyers can see and touch the goods before purchasing them.

E-commerce is also booming in Russia and, in the meantime, many international players have started to compete in the Russian e-commerce market. This development will be supported by the IDN TLDs in Russian that will soon be available. Last week, Registry Agreements were signed for .онлайн (Russian for “online”) and .сайт (Russian for “website”). Do not lose sight of all these key markets!