Dive Brief:
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Israeli merchants are facing a tough reality these days: While three-quarters of Israelis are shopping online, just a quarter of local retailers offer web sales, according to the Israel Internet Association. Israelis are among three nationalities most likely to buy online from outside their own country last year; 79% said they did, from mostly from China but also from the U.S. and, in third place, the U.K., according to a PayPal-Ipsos study last year.
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In order to compete with the formidable price, convenience, and delivery speeds of giants like Amazon and Alibaba, Israeli retailers have to invest more in e-commerce sales and fulfillment, experts told Bloomberg News.
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Notably, the country is home to many tech startups that have helped fuel the success of those two giants as well as other e-commerce sites.
Dive Insight:
Living in Israel is expensive, so shopping at sites like Amazon that offer so many items for less, along with the promise of timely delivery, is increasingly a tempting option, even for those who know that the practice is bad for local businesses.
“Israeli merchants are starting to understand they have to take e-commerce seriously and invest and build a good infrastructure, or they will become irrelevant, and Israelis will buy abroad,” Efi Dahan, PayPal’s regional director of Sub Saharan Africa and Israel, told Bloomberg.
