The online retail development environment in Iran has been improving over the recent years, according to Reportbuyer, a leading industry intelligence solution company that provides all market research reports from top publishers.
With a number of E-Commerce startups emerging, Iran has played a key role in the IT and tech market but still lagged behind countries like the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East.
Local internet companies like Digikala and Bamilo have in recent years become increasingly popular with Iran’s city dwellers and are slowly becoming more popular with smaller towns. New entrants to the local e-commerce market have become more popular in recent months with the Rouhani administration and Tehran Municipality supporting online enterprises.
The UAE has led the growth of B2C (business to consumer) E-Commerce in the past several years by several measures. “Apart from being the largest online market in terms of sales, it also has the best infrastructure for B2C E-Commerce, with the highest mobile, smartphone, Internet and payment card penetration,” the report said.
With more consumers shopping online every year, the share of B2C E-Commerce on total retail sales of goods in the UAE is forecasted to triple between 2014 and 2019.
Bahrain stood out as the fastest growing B2C E-Commerce market.
In Oman and Jordan, Internet penetration grew rapidly, but only a small percentage of Internet users have grasped the benefits of online shopping.
Saudi Arabia is the second largest B2C E-Commerce market in the region. M-Commerce has an especially high potential there, with more than two-thirds of online shoppers making their latest online purchase via smartphones according to a survey done last year. In Qatar, the country with the third highest per capita GDP worldwide, less than 20% of Internet users made purchases online, despite the fact that the majority of residents already have Internet access. Consumer surveys indicate that better prices than in in-store retail could motivate consumers to shop online more.
