E-commerce in Sweden

E-commerce

E-commerce market

E-commerce in Sweden is widespread, in part thanks to a mail order tradition in the country, as well as the high connectivity rate. Even though e-commerce is widely distributed throughout the country, the most active online shoppers tend to be in inland municipalities in the north of Sweden. In 2017, e-commerce in Sweden was worth US$16.9 billion and it is expected to continue to grow. According to the Ecommerce Foundation, the e-commerce segment showed a 32.4% growth in the country in 2016. Nevertheless, the next year growth dropped and reached only 4.1%. For 2018, however, growth is expected to increase and reach 15.4%, which would translate to a turnover that would be worth close to US$ 19 billion by the end of 2018. This year will be the first time ever the share of e-commerce visits using desktops is below 30%. And while the percentage of visits from desktop and tablet is expected to decline, smartphones are expected to be used more and more, accounting for 64% of e-commerce traffic in Sweden. They will also be significant in terms of revenue. Mobile devices (both smartphones and tablets) are expected to account for 60% of e-commerce revenue in 2018, with smartphones accounting for almost half (48%) of all e-commerce revenue. According to Statista, the most popular payment methods in the country in 2017, were invoices (37%), debit and credit cards (26%), direct payment via bank (17%), Paypal, Payson and similar (8%) and Swish (8%).

Social media

In 2017, Sweden had the highest number of active social network users in Scandinavia at 6.6 million, with a penetration rate of 67 %. Social media networks are more popular among younger generations. 98% of internet users between 18 and 34 use social media, a percentage that drops to 83% of people aged between 35 and 49. Only half of internet users aged 50 or more are social media users in Sweden.  On average, Swedes spent 5 hours a week on social media, an increase from 2016 when the average was 4.7 hours. According to Statista, even though Facebook is still the most popular social media platform in Sweden, the number of users is dropping. In 2017, 28.09% of social media users were on Facebook (in 2016, that rate was 31.54%). However, other social media networks are growing in popularity, such as YouTube, which was used by 17.33% of social media users in 2017, and Instagram (15.84% of users). As of July 2018, the most popular social media networks in the country ranked by market share were Facebook (65.24%), Twitter (10.05%), Pinterest (8.35%), Instagram (7.09%), YouTube (5.56%) and Tumblr (1.82%).