Last Year's Online Shopping Transaction Amount 'All-Time High'... Direct Overseas Purchases Also Surpass 5 Trillion Won

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Min-young] Last year, online shopping transaction volume reached 134 trillion won, marking an all-time high. With the explosive increase in the use of food services such as delivery applications, mobile shopping transaction volume was also the highest since statistics began to be compiled.

According to the 'December 2019 and Annual Online Shopping Trends' released by Statistics Korea on the 5th, last year's online shopping transaction volume was 134.583 trillion won, an 18.3% increase from the previous year. This is the highest since statistics began in 2001.

Mobile shopping transaction volume was recorded at 86.7005 trillion won, a 25.5% increase from a year earlier, accounting for 64.4% of the total online shopping transaction volume. This is also an all-time high. The sharp increase in online food service transactions, such as food delivery orders, which rose 84.6%, and mobile transactions, which surged 90.5%, had a significant impact.

Home appliances, electronics, and communication devices (14.4449 trillion won), clothing (14.8705 trillion won), cosmetics (12.2986 trillion won), food and groceries (13.2859 trillion won), and travel and transportation services (16.9811 trillion won) all exceeded 10 trillion won in transaction volume, contributing to the growth of online shopping.

Due to the increase in Chinese tourists, online overseas direct sales, meaning cross-border direct purchases, increased by 65.4% from the previous year to 5.9609 trillion won. Overseas direct sales exceeded 5 trillion won for the first time last year. In particular, cosmetics sales amounted to 5.0034 trillion won, accounting for 84.9% of total sales.

Music, video, and musical instruments (49.8%) and clothing and fashion-related products (5.6%) also increased, but food and groceries (-13.8%) and electronics and communication devices (-6.4%) decreased.

Online overseas direct purchases amounted to 3.6355 trillion won, a 22.3% increase from a year earlier. All regions, including the European Union (EU, 38.5%), the United States (13.2%), and China (30.4%), showed growth.

As of the fourth quarter of last year, online overseas direct purchases were highest in the United States at 488.6 billion won, followed by the EU at 258.3 billion won, China at 166.1 billion won, and Japan at 48 billion won. Japan's online overseas direct purchases decreased by 11.2% compared to a year earlier. This is interpreted as having affected online shopping due to the cooling of Korea-Japan relations following Japan's export restrictions last year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.