PayPal: HK's online commerce to hit HK$55.4B by 2020

Hong Kong's online commerce continues to rise and is expected to reach HK$55.4 billion by 2020, according to a research from PayPal.PayPal's Cross-Border Consumer Research 2018 report for Hong Kong unveiled that the total online spend will reach HK$38.9 billion by the end of 2018, achieving 27% year-on-year growth. A large proportion of increased online commerce spending is coming from mobile shoppers, with moblie commerce growing at a faster rate of 37% year-on-year."Close to half of online shoppers in Hong Kong will increase their online spending in the follwoing 12 months, driven by both rising convenience of online shopping and the growing number of shopping platforms,” William Ip, director and country manager of PayPal Hong Kong, Korea & Taiwan, said. “Sellers today need to be equipped to not only take their business cross-border and online, but also be on mobile and in-app to create a seamless online commerce experience for shoppers.”By 2019, it is estimated that more than half of online spending by Hong Kong shoppers will come via the mobile channel.PayPal also found that cross-border shopping is dominant in online transactions. In the previous 12 months, three in every four online shoppers have made cross-border purchases, compared to just one in four shoppers who shopped only from domestic sites.The majority of shoppers are also open to shopping overseas. 71% of shoppers preferred to shop from large global platforms and 58% of them trusted overseas online stores as much as stores from Hong Kong. Clothing/apparel, footwear and accessories are the most frequently purchased goods from overseas sellers (83%), followed by toys and hobby-related goods (63%).China took the first place of the top market for cross-border shopping, with 48% of Hong Kong’s online shoppers having purchased goods collectively worth HK$3.6 billion from the country in the past year. This was followed by Japan (32%) and the US (30%).However, Hong Kong online shoppers spent an estimated value of HK$5.7 billion on goods from Japan, and they spent HK$2.1 on good from the US.As for challenges to cross-border shopping, shipping costs are the top barrier preventing shoppers from buying cross-border, cited by 35% of shoppers who didn't do cross-border shopping. Other key factors include the difficult process to return unwanted purchases (32%).