I participated in the 18th edition of the GPeC eCommerce Awards Gala that took place on October 31 at the National Theater of Bucharest, where I gathered a series of information and drew some conclusions regarding the online environment and the eCommerce market in Romania that I will structure in this article.
The data shows us that 2023 will be a growing year for the eCommerce area in Romania, but there will no longer be 2-digit increases, which we were used to in past years, but we will refer to a single digit. What will it be? We’ll see at the end of the year after the Black Friday and Christmas periods pass. This year, Black Friday at the biggest player, namely eMag, will start on 10.11.2023 at 07:30, the date on which small and medium-sized shops will usually line up. Given that the big players in the market have a relatively important share of the eCommerce figures in Romania, it is possible that this growth for small and medium-sized companies will be on the limit or even on the minus.
A growing influence of online purchases is the international shops that are increasingly present in the Romanian market. Here we refer to the regional ones, but also to the Chinese ones that have gained a lot of ground in the last year, so that in certain segments they capture about 50%. These external platforms also bring facilities to the Romanian buyer, from multiple payment possibilities, to shorter product delivery times, something that is desired by the end customer.
Next, the issue of scaling Romanian businesses at regional level was discussed. Small and medium-sized players are reluctant to enter neighboring markets, although there are multiple options to do so. Which leads me to think that either entrepreneurs and managers do not have a well-structured business plan, or they only relate to the local market, having a more reserved perspective when it comes to the online environment.
Precisely in order to understand the perception of the Romanian entrepreneur about the opportunities in the online environment, we started this year the study: The importance of the online environment for the development of companies in Romania, which will provide relevant data on this subject. If you want to know more about this study, access the link: https://klain.ro/studiu, and after completing the study, each participant will receive a report with the data obtained and their interpretation.
On the other hand, the behavior of the end customer, who buys online, is a reserved one. More specifically, recent studies in our market show that their fear and lack of security and that of their family urges Romanians to turn to purchases of basic products and services, to pay attention to the price and to buy from outside the country where they find cheaper products and services. One interesting thing is that the mobile area dominates online purchases. 92% of those who buy online say that they prefer to do it directly from their mobile phone. So, mobile first!
Optimizing the purchase flow on the site, respectively the stages through which a customer goes from visitor to end customer, is a topic that is touched on every time in these types of conferences. Why? Because there are still important sites that do not focus on the customer, do not have images and content that provide an emotion or that helps the customer in making the purchase decision. This whole process is done by collecting data and interpreting it, in order to better understand what potential customers are doing on a brand’s website.
Another topic discussed was building a community around a brand. Given that the costs of acquiring the customer in the online environment are constantly increasing, the community is the one that will help a brand develop and will determine the customer to buy.
Many times, I give an example to my clients that if they want a business of 100K euros, they need 1,000 people to buy for 100 euros/year, which is less than 10 euros/month. So, they don’t need to expose themselves to the entire market, to dilute themselves in their online communication to all market directions and segments in order to reach as many people as possible.
AI, the hottest topic in recent times, is something we have to adapt to and implement in our businesses. From the perspective of the online environment and digital marketing, AI is spreading the fastest. It helps us streamline processes, automate repetitive actions, and at the same time, puts pressure on people in the field to understand it, to use new tools and work concepts. For entrepreneurs, AI brings a pressure to adapt because otherwise they risk missing a train that we will hardly catch anymore.
I end this article with the hope that it has given you an interesting perspective on the evolution of the online environment and the eCommerce market in Romania. The year 2023 is a year of transition, with growth prospects, but with a paradigm shift in terms of the pace of this evolution. The online environment offers both opportunities and challenges, and entrepreneurs and eCommerce professionals must be prepared to adapt and innovate in order to remain relevant in the market. We are looking forward to seeing how this industry will develop in the coming months and to follow how the trends in eCommerce in Romania evolve.
