Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

The volume of Azerbaijan's e-commerce market stood at 1.5 million manats ($1.9 million) as of January-July 2014, the State Statistical Committee said on August 8.

The total volume of retail e-commerce in Azerbaijan has grown by 10.2 percent compared to the same period of 2013, the committee said.

The participants of the e-commerce market are legal entities and individuals who are implementing electronic commerce and buyers of goods and services.

Some 78.3 percent out of the purchased electronic goods by the Azerbaijani population accounted for legal entities during the reported period and 21.7 percent - for individuals. Some 90.3 percent of the market turnover of e-commerce accounted for non-food products.

Total retail sales in Azerbaijan amounted to 11.8 billion manats for the first seven months. The sales of consumer goods in the country grew by 9.1 percent, compared with the same period last year.

Around 50.5 percent fell to consumer goods such as food, beverages and tobacco and 49.5 percent fell to non-food products. The specific weight of non-food products has increased by 3.3 percentage points.

Electronic commerce is developing in Azerbaijan in line with ICT sector enlargement, which is reflected in the growing popularity of the e-commerce portal www.b2b.az. More than 10,000 people used the portal's services in the first half of 2014. Overall, more than 36 million users have used its services since 2008.

The users' list include not only Azerbaijani citizens, but also foreigners from Russia, the U.S., Ukraine, Turkey, China, Germany, Great Britain, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Italy, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Georgia, Denmark, Greece, Latvia, France, UAE and other countries.