Wholesale News & Articles

Beyond America's borders, ecommerce continues to grow in terms of dollar revenue and online shoppers. Brazil's growing middle class is increasingly shopping online for goods. According to a report on TheNextWeb.com, 27.4 million Brazilians are web shoppers, and 4 million bought online for the first time this year. Ecommerce in total generated $5.2 billion in the first half of 2011, a rise of 24 percent compared to the first half of 2010.

A study published by the European Parliament says that more European consumers are turning to web stores. The number of online shoppers has doubled since 2005 and, "the increase was largely due to 'high growth' in the number of people from countries where ecommerce was already 'widespread,' and not from countries in Southern and Eastern Europe," according to a news report at Out-Law.com. For instance, in the Netherlands, 91 percent of homes are wired, while in Bulgaria that rate is just 33 percent. The European average is 70 percent.

In Australia, there is growing concern that retailers are not doing much with social media and are lagging behind in ecommerce, compared to other nations. In response, the Minister for Small Business is launching a $700,000 program to encourage small businesses to open online stores. According to Pinstripe Media, "around 90 percent of Australian businesses have access to the Internet, but only 31 percent of micro-businesses and 53 percent of small businesses have a web presence or an online shopping cart."