Leonardo Ottati: “Service and retail stimulate electronic commerce”
Ecuadornews:
The director of the Ecuadorian Chamber of Electronic Commerce will be the main host of the ECommerce Day, chapter Ecuador, where several Latin American experts will share the new trends of electronic commerce, a market that, in the country is registering great advances.
In Ecuador, how much sales volume is this market moving?
Last year, under a fairly close arithmetic estimate, we saw that we are already at $ 800 million, but only local electronic commerce. If we add the international, those external purchases that are made in several prestigious sites such as Amazon, Wallmart, Alibaba, the figures go further. We estimate that it reaches $ 1,000- $ 1,200 million. So, in general, we are talking about an average annual growth of 20%.
Every year there are new offers, what is more prevailing in digital platforms?
An offer that has grown a lot in recent years is the service, which includes those companies that transact from tickets for movies, concerts and shows, to those that include tourist services. Today there are already airlines that are billing 40% of their sales online, a result that in our environment is extremely important. But it is not the only thing; On the other hand, we are also seeing new participants in this market.
Of new sectors?
Yes, fast food restaurants, for example, like Macdonald or Papa Johns. These are businesses that have begun to make greater use of digital applications that promote consumer participation and ultimately purchase. There are other sites that offer to bring products to the house, such as Domicilios.com. A share is also having the new market places, which are introducing a greater offer of retail products. There are shops that have come to offer perfumes, footwear, clothing and more.
The release of safeguards to the imported product helped trade in general, have you also seen benefits?
Of course, this has allowed to give better prices to consumers and that is well seen. However, we have not yet been able to see exactly what type of offer was activated. But without a doubt the sale of televisions, is one of the items that have the greatest demand. This, because they no longer have safeguards and because this year, let’s remember, it was a World Cup. In the era of the World Cup, there must have been 50 weeks of TV sets selling ‘online’ which is an interesting demand.
What is the participation of online sales in our country, if this is measured in commerce in general?
It is still minimal to measure it. Especially if it is compared at the regional level. There are other countries that have a large retail. To say, in Chile, which has a regional operation, about $ 10 billion is invoiced, 20% of that is ‘on line’. Here in Ecuador that does not happen because the retail market is not as developed. Argentina, Brazil are other examples. In Brazil it has sites that bill up to $ 2,000 million. These are countries that also lead us on how to provide better shopping experiences to the user: above all in logistics and payment methods. (I)
Source: http://www.expreso.ec/economia/economia-comercio-ecommerceday-compras-online-LX2303386