S.Korea’s online shopping grows in August

SEOUL, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) — South Korea’s online shopping grew in single digits in August on the back of solid demand for food, farm produce and car accessories, statistical office data showed Wednesday.
Shopping in cyberspace stood at 19.56 trillion won (14.8 billion U.S. dollars) in August, up 1.9 percent compared to the same month of last year, according to Statistics Korea.
Online shopping maintained an upward trend, but the August figure marked the slowest increase since relevant data began to be compiled in 2017.
The low growth was attributed to overdue payments by two e-commerce platforms that filed for court receivership in July after failing to make payments to vendors and offer refunds to customers.
Food and beverage transactions in cyberspace advanced 15.5 percent, while demand for agricultural, livestock and fishery products gained 13.4 percent in August from a year earlier.
Online purchases of car accessories surged 33.2 percent and demand for food delivery services grew 15.4 percent.
Online transactions of e-coupon services tumbled 48.6 percent amid the weaker trend to provide gifts such as coffee and cake through e-coupons, while those for mobile devices, computers and sports items declined in double digits.
Shopping through smartphones, tablets and other mobile gadgets climbed 5.4 percent over the year to 14.98 trillion won (11.4 billion dollars) in August, accounting for 76.6 percent of the combined online shopping. ■