Online retail grew by 10 percent last year

Domestic online retail reached a gross annual turnover of HUF 1,323 billion in 2022, which exceeded the previous year’s level by 9.9 percent; Last year, the Hungarian online market also significantly lost its speed – according to the joint research of the market research company GKID and Mastercard, the findings of which were presented by Norbert Madar, GKID’s senior consultant.

Domestic e-commerce grew by an average of 16 percent per year in the years before the coronavirus epidemic, followed by 45.4 percent growth in 2020 and 32 percent growth in 2021. Last year, due to global and domestic economic influences, consumer habits were rearranged, which favored in-store shopping, but the online sector in Hungary was still able to remain on a growth path, unlike other European countries, the expert said. Due to the increasing weight of traditional stores, the share of e-commerce in total trade fell from the record level of 10.4 percent in 2021 to 9.6 percent in 2022.

At the same time, Norbert Madar emphasized: Hungarian consumers prefer online shopping more and more, the primary driver of the market’s growth is the continuous increase in the frequency of purchases. Last year, the number of domestic online orders reached 77.1 million, which is 11.8 percent more than the previous year. In Hungary, including services, about 5.1 million people shop online, 3.9 million of them buy products, they are the customer base of online stores. Last year, on average, a customer ordered 21 times online, which is a 13 percent increase compared to 2021. In Budapest, the average number of online orders exceeded 30. The average national value spent on one purchase last year was HUF 17,200, 2 percent less than the previous year.
According to data from May this year, 32,000 Hungarian online stores operate, 4 percent less than last May. Norbert Madar indicated that significantly more online stores operate in the Czech Republic or Slovakia, for example. 65 percent of domestic online stores have an annual turnover of less than HUF 100 million, and only 13 percent have an annual turnover of over HUF 1 billion. The leading consultant of GKID highlighted: foreign traders are getting stronger, the border between domestic and foreign orders is getting thinner. This is a serious challenge for local companies operating in Hungary. Every seventh of the Hungarian online stores is also present in foreign markets, and there are almost a similar proportion of those planning to exit.
László Szetnics, Mastercard’s regional manager responsible for digital services and products, said that while in 2015, customers paid for 47 percent of online orders in cash, in 2022 this proportion was only 27.5 percent. Based on research by Mastercard and GKID, 63 percent of online orders in Hungary are settled by electronic payment. Among the different payment solutions, online payment has the largest share with 35 percent, followed by cash on delivery with bank card with 28 percent. Currently, 4 out of 5 online stores allow customers to pay online – he explained.