BCG: Digital Consumers, Emerging Markets, and the $4 Trillion Future

By 2022, some 3 billion emerging-market consumers will be online. Most them will use the internet to collect information before buying products, pushing the level of digitally influenced purchases to a staggering $3.9 trillion.

Distinct Markets

The shift in how emerging-market consumers buy products will play out in different ways in different countries. Companies should take a disaggregated approach, adjusting their strategies at the product, country, and even city level.

Evolving Consumer Behavior

Consumers in the most digitally advanced markets use digital payment methods for online transactions and have high expectations for the experience that a website or app provides. In less advanced markets, the quality of the experience is much less important than price, and the payment method is often cash on delivery.

A survey by BCG’s Center for Customer Insight has captured these differences. The survey tapped into the behaviors of more than 15,000 people in cities such as Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, and Nairobi, where internet connectivity is rising sharply.