The main reason for Pakistani consumers doing their shopping via
international websites was the wider choice available, closely followed by
price. Pakistan were turning to overseas websites as well.
Online shopping continued to rise last year and
highlighted the concerns of Pakistan retailers about how they could compete for
sales with international websites.
More than half of adult Pakistanis were now shopping
online, and local retailers needed to figure out where the gaps were, and how
they could compete in the online market.
The results showed 54 per cent of Pakistani -
1,781,000 - aged over 18 are shopping online, up 38 per cent from five years
ago. The number of purchases being made per person has also grown, with 446,000
people, or a quarter of online shoppers, making 11 or more transactions online
in 2012, an increase of 44 per cent from two years ago.
Despite online shopping on offshore retailers'
websites, a lot of the big players in the Pakistan online retail market were
still doing well.
In 2012 the online seller of books, music, DVDs,
toys, games and other items claimed to have sold a product every seven seconds.
The Asian online retailer also changed its prices according to currency moves,
in order to make the most out of the recently high PKR.
Meanwhile, Pakistani online retailers could off-set
potential losses to international websites buy marketing their products to
overseas consumers.
"If you are an online retailer you've got to
look outside Pakistan," adding that the Asian market was easy to access,
and five times the size of the Pakistan market.
Retailers expected to see two million Pakistanis shopping
online by the end of 2013, and spending to rise to $4b.
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