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Some 2.6 mn Saudi shoppers make online purchases at least once per day as the boom in the Kingdom’s e-commerce industry continues, according to Checkout.com’s State of Digital Commerce in MENA 2024 report (pdf). Saudi Arabia is seeing “staggering” growth in online shopping with the number of Saudi consumers shopping online daily growing 90% in the past four years, according to the report. This is 10 percentage points above the regional average, according to the report. The growth rate of Saudi shoppers online jumps to 180% when measured weekly.
The methodology: Global payment service provider Checkout.com and British market research firm YouGov collected and analyzed data on the region over the past four years. The report analyzes data from 19k consumers across Saudi, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Egypt. Surveys for the latest report were conducted in September 2023, covering the first half of 2023.
Spend, spend, spend: Online shoppers from the region expect even more online spending in the future with 54% of Saudi consumers anticipating an increase in their e-commerce engagement, followed closely by Kuwait at 53%. Some of that engagement will likely be directed abroad with 34% of Saudi shoppers citing cross-border transactions as a leading incentive for e-commerce shopping. Saudi leads the region in terms of cross-border transactions in absolute value, but comes fourth in terms of consumers percentage after Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain.
Cashless is the way to go: Preference for cash on delivery has more than halved in the region from 41% in 2020 to 20%, the report showed. Only 10% of shoppers in Saudi, Kuwait, and UAE opt for cash when making online purchases, it said.
