RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – E-commerce is in full swing, with new sites joining the business, resulting in a 35% increase in the total volume of purchases compared to the first six months of 2021.
Online consumer habits remain on an upward trend even though pandemic restrictions have been lifted.
“We have a growth in the volume of purchases comparing the first six months of this year with June last year. At the local level, there was PYG 221 billion (US$32 million).
“In some items, the trend continued and grew almost 100%; therefore, the development of e-commerce in recent times has been very positive,” explained Gustavo Giménez, president of the Paraguayan Chamber of Electronic Commerce (Capace), in an interview with the newspaper La Nación/Nación Media.
BEST-SELLING PRODUCTS
The best-selling products are electronic items, such as household appliances and cell phones, and purchases related to gastronomy, such as groceries and supermarkets.
As for the fashion section, clothing and footwear had significant growth and what has to do with the online purchase of products in the educational field is also the most sought after.
“Consumer confidence has improved a lot when using electronic means of payment. Previously we had seen people distrusted putting their credit cards on Paraguayan sites.
“Still, we can visualize in recent studies that payment services with credit and debit cards in our market have a rate of 0.1% of fraud issues,” he said
However, they note that most of the purchases made online with these payment methods are made on foreign sites.
E-COMMERCE CHALLENGES
The professional explained that large companies are the ones that bet mostly on this industry and that it is a pending matter for micro, small, and medium-sized companies (MSMEs) to switch to Internet sales since there is an excellent opportunity for them.
“We must add more players to the Internet market; we need more MSMEs with their websites so that we can expand the range of offers that Paraguayan consumers can have,” he said.
With information from América Retail
Key Facts
— Deep Dive
— For the complete picture, read our in-depth guide: Paraguay: Washington's Most Valued Ally in Latin America
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
LatAm Markets: Live Signals → — real-time movers, turnover leaders and FX across Latin America.
Read More from The Rio Times