PPRO Group World Cup E-Commerce Report: Who will be victorious?

E-commerce and payment during the Football World Cup

It’s finally time – today, the opening match of the FIFA World Cup 2018 will kick off. Sports fans are likely to stream more than 15 million hours of digital content, write 700 million tweets and post more than 3 billion World Cup Facebook posts over the four-week period, providing immense e-commerce potential. During the last World Cup, traders spent $1.5 billion on thematic advertising and marketing[1]. In 2018, a worldwide increase in the e-commerce market of 14 percent compared to the previous year has been predicted. To support merchants as they prepare, the PPRO Group has published a new report summarising the most important information on the payment preferences of the 32 participating countries.

To enable online merchants to optimise their e-commerce strategy to successfully target the various nations participating in the World Cup, the report includes an overview of the preferred payment methods, the latest economic achievements, short-term prospects as well as insights into the e-commerce environment of the participating nations.

To maximise on the potential sales opportunities the world over and to profit from the high interest generated around the World Cup online merchants need to tailor their activities, offers and promotional content according to the respective preferences of the users in each market. From market to market, local preferences in purchase categories, payment types, delivery methods can differ widely. Simply porting an e-commerce model from one market even to its neighbour can significantly reduce conversion rates.

Online spending increases massively every year and significant occasions such as the World Cup provide great opportunity for merchants to capitalise on. For example, in the UK, 77 per cent of UK consumers shopped online in 2017, up from 53 per cent in 2008[2], with an average spend of £3,003. This is expected to increase by 14.6 per cent this year. The World Cup serves as a reminder for British online merchants not to forget customers in foreign markets – German online sales are expected to increase by 15.9 per cent this year, Saudi Arabian online sales by 32 percent and 9 per cent in Peru. If online merchants are unable to provide the appropriate payment preferences to attract each region’s growing online spend, they will miss out of the wealth of opportunities and fast paced growth that the international e-commerce market has to offer during the World Cup and beyond.

Detailed information and further forecasts can be found in the free “PPRO Payments & Ecommerce Report World Cup 2018”: https://www.ppro.com/e-book/the-brand-new-ppro-payments-e-commerce-report-world-cup-2018/

[1] https://www.ppro.com/e-book/the-brand-new-ppro-payments-e-commerce-report-world-cup-2018/

[2] https://fashionunited.uk/news/retail/uk-online-shopping-behaviour-revealed/2017080825414