E-commerce in Peru

Milagros Lártiga

Things are not what they used to be. Globalization has change the way business work

because business no longer work only at a local level but globally (Cianni and Steckler, 2017).

The electronic commerce (the one made by using internet) is also known as e-commerce. E-

commerce has been developing a lot in developed countries. However, in countries like Peru, its

development has not been easy since not all the population has access to the internet. According

to Ipsos (2017), the online shoppers represent only 10% of the total Peruvian population and

57% of the people buys though their cellphone. The purpose of this essay is to explain how to

develop e-commerce in Peru.

The main limitation to develop e-commerce is the mentioned by Export.gov (2017):

Currently, only 14.1% of the population in Peru has internet access at home, though

mobile penetration is higher at 20.2% of the population. In the Lima metropolitan area,

53.1% of homes have internet access, while the rest of urban areas only have 24.4%

access and rural areas only have 1.9% access. (p.1)

Also, Ipsos (2016) mentioned that in Peru, only 22% of the connected population has purchased

through electronic commerce and on those products, 42% has been technology. So, if there is no

easy access to internet, there is not easy e-commerce access. The government should take in

consideration this issue because the internet access can also give people new opportunities in

education and others.

Also, the key to develop e-commerce in Peru relies on the reasons that people mentioned

create distrust about it. Arroyo and Castillo (2017) mentioned that, in Peru, most of the people do

not want to perform these transactions because they are afraid to be victims of fraud and because
they prefer to see the product in physic. The aspect of fraud maybe can be fixed by offering new

insurance plans adapted to this new trend because the ones that exist in the country are not focus

on those aspects and also by establishing laws and norms that support how to act in those cases,

so customers can feel more secure about electronic transactions.

Another reason is that 58.4% of Peruvians do not use banks so they cannot pay online

and desist to make any transactions in that way and companies have little knowledge about the e-

commerce process so most of them consider that is not necessary to use it (Arroyo and Castillo,

2017). Bankization can be done by making the baking system more accessible to Peruvians,

promote its benefits and with it, also the benefits of e-commerce. It is important because if more

people use banks, more people will tend to be predisposed to perform electronic commerce

activities and this can be done through marketing, more fare interests, campaigns to shown

benefits and special plan aim to give loans or affiliation benefits for low income population.

In order to increase the knowledge of companies about e-commerce and its process. This

can be done through workshops and conferences that can be deliver by entities of the govern.

Those entities can contact owners of companies once a year (at the beginning) by email and by

mail with the information about those conferences and dates so they can know what is important

for them. Also, together with this schedule, more information about e-commerce can be deliver

in infographics. In that way, owners of companies can increase its knowledge about e-commerce,

its benefits and maybe, they will be more predisposed to applying it.

Another aspect that discourage people to use e-commerce is User Experience (UX).

According to Rinaldi (2017) “96% of smartphone users have encountered sites that weren’t

designed for mobile devices and mobile users are 5 times more likely to abandon a task if a site

isn’t optimized for mobile. Because of those reasons, companies should take in consideration to
adapt its websites to a responsive design, so websites can be seen on any device. However, this is

not the only aspect that affect UX, also, the design itself of the page is very important so the

design of a web should be seen as an investment and do not only as expenses and be develop in

the best possible way.

Gfk (2018) affirmed that one of the main barriers to online shopping is the distrust that

the product arrives or that it can be stolen. This distrust can be reduced if companies that offer

the e-commerce option, also offer some product insurance or if they stablish a clear procedure to

perform if some of those situations happens. In that sense, the customer can decide, based on that

information, if he wants to purchase the product or not.

As can be seen, the efforts do not only have to be done by the companies that offers e-

commerce options but also by the government, banks, payment and delivery companies because

the conjunct effort can culminate in the development of the e-commerce in the country. Also,

most of the reasons mentioned were related to trust, transparency and security. So, if the

companies build strong brands and provide good buying experiences in the first purchase,

perhaps more buyers were willing to buy again and recommend this type of purchase as it saves

time and it is usually easy to perform.

At the end, in order to develop e-commerce in Peru there should be better connections

options, new laws and norms about electronic commerce to reduce and avoid fraud, promote and

increase the amount of people that use banks. Also, there should be more information about e-

commerce itself and its process, companies should consider UX and applied to its business.

Another important issue is the creation and implementation of insurance and procedures adapted

to the possible situations that can happen in a transaction. However, all these proposals and
improvements are not going to be successful to develop e-commerce if there is not team work

between all the shareholders.

References

Arroyo, D. & Castillo, A. (2017). Retos y estrategias para el crecimiento del comercio

electrónico peruano, en el modelo de negocios B2C, tomando como referencia el país del

Chile (Tesis de Licenciatura, UPC, Lima, Perú). Retrieved from

Cianni, M., & Steckler, S. (2017). Transforming Organizations to a Digital World. People &

Strategy, 40(2), 14-19.

Gfk (2018). Future Buy. Retrieved from https://www.gfk.com/es-pe/insights/press-

release/descubre-los-habitos-de-compra-en-futurebuy-2/

Rinaldi, J. (2017, May 13th). 30 Eye-Opening User Experience Stats: Infographic. Impactbnd.

Retrieved from https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/user-experience-stats-infographic

Export.gov (2017). Peru – Ecommerce. Retrieved from https://www.export.gov/article?id=Peru-

ECommerce

Ipsos (2016). Comercio electrónico. Retrieved from

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/2017-02/comercio-electronico-2016.pdf

Ipsos (2017). Comprador en línea. Retrieved from

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/2017-03/EComerce.pdf