We can call Romania's e-commerce market as untouched and for you, dear business owners, it is a "holy grail".
The number of internet users in Romania is still growing and the number of online shops is also growing. According to the GPeC blog, the internet penetration rate increased by 56% at the end of 2015, which is a fairly decent jump in comparison with 2014. On average, this represents 11 million active internet users aged 16-55.
In its statistics, StarUpCafe states that e-commerce has increased by 24% over the same timeframe. As a result, the Romanian e-commerce market is really going up, and it is up to you, whether you try to get the top e-commerce elite of the Romanian e-commerce market.
According to the Romanian online store association, there are approximately 10,000 online shops registered. Although only around 2,000 (!) are really active.
Romanian e-commerce builds on global standards
Customers around the world have the same requirements, Romanians are no different.
The most common customer requirements:
- transport and exchange for free
- 100% money back guarantee
- the possibility of returning the goods without giving any reason
- fast delivery
Try to imagine to be a customer yourself, what would you want from the shop?
E-commerce, M-commerce, Social commerce
Ecompedia has come up with interesting results. According to them, people aged 25-34 have the largest share in online shopping.
Ecompedia's most surprising finding is that young people between the ages of 18 and 25 use internet shopping only minimally, but social networks through the roof. Socialization, communication = social networks. Use their strength in your favor and you will won.
At the same time, ask yourself what devices are the most people connected to the internet? Most common are mobile devices. And that's also the philosophy of m-commerce - shopping, view products and services via smartphones.
Simply put, if you already ownand online shop and you know what the requirements are for your local customers, it will not be a problem for you to satisfy a Romanian customer. For your information, more than half of Romanian Internet users have university education. Therefore, pay special attention to product descriptions, translations into romanian language and offer them quality. Romanian customers will surely appreciate it.
Automated and optimized systems really support the growth of ecommerce
The share of e-commerce revenues in the total merchant market in Romania is only 5%. Compared to other regions where wasrecorded up to 4 times of this share, we can immediately say that the development potential is high.
According to eMarket, global online sales rose to 7.4% in 2015.
The biggest problem why Romanians use the internet so little for shopping is the lack of optimization and automation of systems. A lengthy and fractured shopping process would discourage every customer in your country as well.
This means that it is up to store owners to create an optimal and customer-friendly system that will grow and improve. The key challenge for you will be to successfully solve the crisis point of automation and optimization. Remember one - get more time and reduce costs.
Automate common routine tasks that are associated with running, for example, the overall history of your customers' activity, their individual segmentation, the types of devices they used, newsletters distribution, marketing campaigns that will attract the selected customer segment, product personalization and recommendation, and much more.
The Romanian e-commerce market for automation as well as e-shop optimization is still untouched, and that's your chance here. First, it will require a certain amount of investment and time, but trust us - you will benefit from it.
Supply services, logistics, courier companies
This, for us, a common service, such as logistics, is still only in "diapers" in Romania. Many customers are complaining about late or incomplete orders. This offers a broad-spectrum improvement.
On the other hand, it should be noted that the courier companies have a great effort to improve their services.
The cheapest and at the same time the slowest form of transport is the Romanian Post. Difficult processing and even more lengthy delivery process.
We definitely recommend you to be in the hands of local courier companies. Some of them, for example, DPD, are also known in other countries.
Perhaps the most famous courier company, which covers most of the services in Romania, is Cargus. In addition, we can mention FAN Courier or Someday Courier, which are also very popular in Romania.
Quality content to boost Romanian e-commerce
The cost of setting up and running an online shop is somewhat higher than other countries, but it gives you a competitive advantage for the future.
You will get even more head start before others if your products have creative descriptions, good reviews and recommendations, user guides, high-quality photos, video presentations, or other informative materials that attract a potential customer.
Content marketing has now become one of the most popular global trends. It is not easy to work without it. Present to potential customers what they are interested in.
Usually, the content marketing is mainly used in the form of blog articles/online media, various types of infographics and inspirational videos.
There are quite popular white books, ebooks, or different kinds of podcasts in the modern markets that are not very widespread in the east but not at all in Romania.
If your potential customers find all the information they need on your site and something more, do you think they will have to look somewhere else?
Practical article about the costs associated with the localization of an online shop and with the translation of texts on the website. You will gain important insight and valuable know-how that will help you decide how to tackle each item: whether to do it yourself or in cooperation with a specialist agency, or a combination of the two.
After reading the article, you will have a basic overview of the expenses that await you when analyzing the market and choosing an online web platform. You will gain the necessary know-how and insight to help you decide how to tackle each item: whether to do it yourself, with a specialist agency, or whether there is a happy medium.
In 2018, Romanian customers made more than € 3.5 billion in online purchases, up 30% year-on-year!
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