Online shopping in Pakistan

Interesting facts about the shopping habits of Pakistani internet users

Although there is no denying that online shopping has brought much convenience to people’s lives, the issue poses a great challenge for retailers as there is a number of points to consider. What kind of devices do Pakistanis use to shop online? How much money do they spend? How does the shopping activity change across the year? Is online shopping more popular among men or women? To look for answers, Picodi.com analysed last year’s data and presented the results in this report.

Smartphones on the rise

Mobile commerce is booming globally and it turns out Pakistanis joined the trend. According to our internal data, almost half of transactions were made with the use of a mobile device last year.

What is more, Pakistanis tend to spend more when using smartphones. When they did shopping with the use of a phone, the average order value was Rs. 9,695. It’s about Rs. 531 more than when using desktops (Rs. 9,164) and Rs. 4,906 more than when using tablets (Rs. 4,789). iOS users spend more than Android users — Rs. 14,510 vs Rs. 7,467 on average.

The important question is who shops online more — men or women? Our data shows that there were more purchases made by Pakistani men than those made by women, 59% and 41% respectively.

Unsurprisingly, it’s the young generation that prefers online shopping. More than half of all online shoppers (56%) are people between the ages of 25 and 34. They’re followed by people aged 18-24 (23%) and 35-44% (14%). The remaining 7% are consumers who are over 45 years old.

Busy end of the year

According to our research, the average order value of a Pakistani shopper is the highest in December (Rs. 9,945), followed by November and October (Rs. 9,577 and Rs. 8,348 accordingly).

If you look at the shopping activity, it turns out November has the highest number of transactions — one-fifth (19.3%) of all the transactions made during the year. The second busiest month when it comes to the number of transactions was October (11.3%), followed by December (8.8%). The lowest number of transactions was noted in March with the average order value amounting to Rs. 6,320.

If we look at the activity of Pakistani consumers across the week, it turns out that mobile users are the most active on Monday. On the other hand, shopping on computers is preferred on Friday. Pakistanis definitely prefer to shop in the afternoon: the peak of sales occurs between 12 PM and 6 PM.

The most popular categories for online shopping among Pakistanis were: clothing, food on delivery, footwear, travel and electronics.

Online shoppers around the world

We analysed data from 35 countries and compared the devices people use to shop online and the average order value. Pakistan, with 44% of orders made on mobile devices, is among the countries where mobile shopping is on the rise. Peru tops the ranking with 76% of online purchases made with the use of smartphones. Close behind are Nigeria and Thailand (62% and 56%).

However, when it comes to the average order value, Pakistanis with their US$67 (Rs. 9,310) rank lower than the world’s average, which is US$79. Emiratis spent the most money per order — astonishing US$218. And it looks like Hungarians and Turks don’t like to spend a lot in one go. They are at the bottom of the ranking with US$32 and US$38 respectively.

Online shopping in numbers:

• almost half of transactions were made on a mobile device last year,
• there were more purchases made by men than by women (59% vs 41%),
• more than half of all online shoppers (56%) are people between the ages of 25 and 34,
• the average order value in Pakistan is the highest in December (Rs. 9,945),
• the highest number of transactions was noted in November — 19.3% of all annual transactions,
• clothing, food delivery and shoes are the top 3 categories for online shopping

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Methodology

This report uses the internal data of a global e-commerce platform Picodi.com for 2018. For currency conversion, we used the average exchange rate for March 2019.

Public Use

Are you willing to share the information and infographics about shopping online in Pakistan with your readers? Feel free to use all the data and infographics presented in this report for both commercial and non-commercial purposes as long as you indicate the author of the research (Picodi.com) with a link to this subpage.