Costa Rica has a growing e-commerce market, projected to reach a turnover of US$4.5 billion in 2022, according to transactional data from Americas Market Intelligence (detailed in our E-Commerce Data Library). In terms of turnover, this makes Costa Rica a superior market to that of Panama, Ecuador, and Dominican Republic, just below Guatemala, Peru, and Argentina in online purchases of products and services.
Costa Rica is also one of the few Latin American countries to have shown an increase in cross-border online purchases, currently accounting for 53% of its total e-commerce, which contrasts with the relatively low development of its local e-commerce. In markets such as Brazil—seen as the most mature in e-commerce—the share of cross-border online purchases is just 6%, according to AMI.
Another significant factor in Costa Rica’s e-commerce market is its economic dynamics. Americas Market Intelligence (AMI) has for the first time explored the proportion that Costa Ricans spend on online purchases—as opposed to face-to-face purchases—finding that e-commerce spending per capita in Costa Rica (equivalent to 11% of its total spending) is higher than that of markets like Mexico (6%) and Argentina (5%).
In the infographic below we present other significant data on Costa Rican e-commerce in 2022. We focus on the favorite online payment methods, the devices most commonly used for online purchases, as well as the top selling e-commerce products and services in Costa Rica.
Moving beyond these data
Contact us if you are interested in a more in-depth market study on e-commerce payments in Costa Rica, or other payment-related topics there and elsewhere in Latin America. Our personalized studies can help your company with strategic decision making, and to identify new opportunities in the market.
We also invite you to see our infographic about e-commerce in Peru, Brazil, México, Argentina, Colombia and Chile.
