Which country is the new e-commerce leader?
- 04 March 2021
In February, the new leader of the B2C E-commerce Index of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development was announced. Every year, several factors are measured to determine the country with the highest readiness to engage in e-commerce.
Which country surpassed the Netherlands in 2020?
In 2019 and 2018, Netherlands was the leader of the ranking. This year, Switzerland was announced as the country with the highest e-commerce potential. The top 10 countries in the ranking were:
- Switzerland
- Netherlands
- Denmark
- Singapore
- United Kingdom
- Germany
- Finland
- Ireland
- Norway
- Hong Kong
Which factors are taken into account in the E-commerce Index?
To choose the country with the highest e-commerce potential, UNCTAD includes such factors as:
- Share of individuals using the internet
- Share of individuals with an account
- Secure internet servers
- UPU postal reliability score
Based on that, it is easy to understand why Switzerland won first place:
- 97% of the Swiss population used the Internet in 2019
- Switzerland has high banking coverage, ranking 11th in the world by the density of bank branches
- In Switzerland, there are 4 national languages. Online shops which want to be available for all the customers adjust to that which improves the quality
- The country ranks 5th among the countries included in the index in secure server density, a proxy for online shops in the country
- The postal reliability in Switzerland is ranked very high – it scored the 7th place in the global ranking
As UNCTAD summarizes: “In summary, high performance across all indicators, particularly delivery reliability, drives the high Swiss ranking and reflect robust underlying conditions for development of B2C e-commerce. In addition, Switzerland stands out for its wealth of e-commerce related statistics from the national statistical office, postal sector regulator and operator, and industry association.”