The Shopping Landscape Changed by COVID-19... Last Year's Online Transactions Reach a Record High of 193 Trillion Won

Online Shopping Trends for December 2021 and the Entire Year

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Son Seon-hee] Last year, the annual online shopping transaction amount nearly reached 200 trillion won, marking an all-time high. In particular, transactions for food delivery services increased by 1.5 times within a year. As the COVID-19 pandemic prolonged, consumer patterns rapidly shifted to contactless methods.

According to the "December 2021 and Annual Online Shopping Trends" released by Statistics Korea on the 3rd, the total annual online shopping transaction amount last year was 192.8946 trillion won, a 21% increase compared to the previous year (159.4384 trillion won). Among this, mobile shopping transactions amounted to 138.1951 trillion won, also increasing by 27.6% during the same period.

By product category, the largest increases in online shopping transaction amounts were in services (37%), food (26.7%), and home appliances (24.4%). Especially for food services, due to the spread of remote work and other factors, demand for delivery food greatly increased, with online transactions reaching 25.6847 trillion won last year, a 48.2% increase compared to the previous year.

Online shopping transactions for food and groceries also rose by 26.3% to 24.8568 trillion won, and transactions for home appliances, electronics, and telecommunications devices increased by 25.8% to 22.8238 trillion won.

Excluding other sectors such as religious goods, the only product category that saw a decrease in online shopping transaction amounts was cosmetics, which declined by 1.8% to 12.207 trillion won compared to the previous year.

Last year, direct overseas purchases through online channels amounted to 5.1404 trillion won, a 26.4% increase from the previous year. Overseas direct purchases from the United States recorded the largest share at 2.0832 trillion won, up 15%. Purchases from China followed at 1.3386 trillion won, with a 63.6% increase over the year.

By product category, online overseas direct purchases increased across all categories, including clothing and fashion-related products (27.7%), food and groceries (20.3%), and daily necessities and automotive supplies (33.0%).

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