Europe still dominates global ecommerce ranking

European countries hold eight of the top ten spots on the B2C E-commerce Index of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. This list ranks countries on their reading to engage in ecommerce. Europe remains, by far, the most prepared region for ecommerce.

It’s the Netherlands again, just like last year, that leads the Business-to-Consumer E-commerce Index. The Western European country is followed by Switzerland. The only two non-European countries in the top 10 are Singapore and Australia. The first one ended on a third place, while Australia ranked tenth.

The analyzed countries are scored on the access to secure internet servers, the reliability of postal services and infrastructure, and the country’s share of internet users and those who have an account with a financial institution or mobile-money-service provider.

‘Gap between developed and developing countries’

Although it’s great news for Europe that 80 percent of the top ten positions are filled by European countries, this also shows a different development: “Our B2C index shows how real and worrying the digital gap is between developed and developing countries”, Shamika N. Sirimanne, director of UNCTAD’s unit that prepares the annual index, says.

Europe: 80% of internet users shop online

For example, in six nations across Europe over 80 percent of the internet users shop online. But in most low and lower middle-income countries that proportion is below 10 percent. “There is an urgent need to help less prepared countries improve their infrastructure and build trust among their population”, Sirimanne explains.

Iceland and Sweden drop out of top 10

When we take a further look at this year’s top 10, it shows that Iceland and Sweden (just like New Zealand) dropped out of this list. According to UNCTAD, this is due to a decrease in their scores for secure servers and postal reliability. In addition, Sweden also saw a drop in the share of internet users.

Finland and Germany join the top 10

The tree countries were placed by Finland (went from 12^th place to fourth), Germany (from 16^th to ninth) and Australia (from 11^th to tenth).