Economic research company GKI Digital has revealed that about 50,000 Hungarians became active online shoppers between the middle of March and the end of April, when lockdown measures were introduced to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
According to MTI, the additions brought the total number of active online shoppers to 3,350,000. GKI stated that this scale of growth would have required a period of eight months last year.
Increased online shopping has brought express delivery companies’ package volume close to levels usually only seen around the holidays.
Figures show that online retailers’ first-quarter gross sales climbed by 21.4 percent to HUF 149.6 billion (EUR 424m) from the same period a year earlier. Orders were up 15.9 percent at 9,900,000.
Finally, GKI forecasts an increase of as much as 35 percent for online sales in the second quarter.
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