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Just 10 Countries = 88.7% of ALL Sales! (Based On 10 YEARS of Data!)

by Thomas
9 replies
Hi Warriors:

Not sure if this will be of interest or use to anyone in particular (especially since I don't disclose some additional information to more narrowly-define things) but, having looked at almost 10 years of data, I discovered that, of the 111 countries/territories where people have bought (non-IM) online products from me, just 10 countries accounted for 88.7% of all sales.

Some probably aren't that surprising, but I think some definitely will be. They are:

  • 1. United States @ 52.5%: Not really that big a surprise; the product in question is directed at the US market, and the US is also the most populated of the (predominantly) English-speaking countries anyway.
  • 2. United Kingdom @ 11.7%: Again, not that surprising. The UK is the second most-populated English-speaking country, and British people's willingness to buy stuff online is comparable to that of Americans.
  • 3. Australia @ 9.9%: This kinda surprised me, given that Australia's population is only one-third that of the UK, but the level of purchases by Aussies is definitely NOT correspondingly lower! Also, despite accounting for nearly 10% of all sales, the Aussies actually made up a substantially lower % of site visitors.
  • 4. Canada @ 6%: While I'm not surprised to see Canada on the list, it's worth noting that the population of Canada is 50% higher than Australia, but the level of purchasing (assuming I'm calculating it right ) was actually 65% lower.
  • 5. South Africa @ 2.2%: This was very surprising since English is only spoken by about 8% of the South African population. However, with a population of over 50 million people, I guess that amount to a goodly number of people.
  • 6. Singapore @ 1.5%: The presence of Singapore was also surprising, but probably shouldn't have been. English is an official language in Singapore; more than 80% of Singaporeans speak it as a first or second language. Also, Singapore only has 5 million people, so having it feature on a list with countries that have between 10-60 times that many people is also noteworthy (as it is with New Zealand, Ireland, and the UAE below).
  • 7. New Zealand @ 1.4%: Not that surprising to see NZ here though, despite being a English-speaking country, it's often forgotten about when people are targeting English-speaking buyers (or worse, they get lumped in with the Aussies. Grrr).
  • 8. Ireland @ 1.30%: Another oft-forgotten English-speaking country (or worse, one that gets lumped in with the UK. Double grrr ). However, here's the thing about Ireland: simialar to (though not as dramatic as) the Aussies, the ratio of Irish site visitors to Irish buyers was remarkable. With a population of only 4.5 million, I, for one, am impressed (and not just because I'm biased anyway).
  • 9. Philippines @ 1.2%: I can't quite articulate why but, personally, I was astonished to find the Phillipines on the list. I shouldn't be since English is an official language there, but I still am anyway. Alas, the Phillipines is also one of the countries where refund rates have been highest (by quite a bit).
  • 10. United Arab Emirates @ 1%: This one astonished the bejesus out of me. I have no idea why the UAE in particular would feature in the top ten. Perhaps it has to do with a large English-speaking ex-pat population. Perhaps there's some other reason. But there it is anyway.
Lessons?

Well, as I mentioned above, I probably haven't given enough background information for anyone to draw definite conclusions, but I feel safe enough to say the following:
  1. Keep targeting the "big 3" that most people target anyway (The US, Canada, and the UK).

  2. Pay MUCH closer attention to Australia than you might have done in the past. (I know I will be doing so in future!)

  3. Don't neglect the smaller English-speaking countries. They buy online too, and often convert much better than the larger countries. And the fact that most people do ignore them means there's that much less competition for you.
Hope this helps somebody...

Tommy.
#based #buying #countries #data #top #years
  • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
    Interesting stats. Of course, I am totally shocked that the percentage of sales from China, Russia and the Ukraine apparently did not match their massive levels of traffic.

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  • Profile picture of the author J Bold
    Awesome stats.

    That's valuable stuff, people!

    Very good to know.

    I too, was surprised to notice at least one customer from Dubai. (UAE)

    Your results are pretty much what they thought would be besides that one.
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  • Profile picture of the author DianaHeuser
    Originally Posted by Thomas View Post

    • 5. South Africa @ 2.2%: This was very surprising since English is only spoken by about 8% of the South African population. However, with a population of over 50 million people, I guess that amount to a goodly number of people.
    Not true. Despite the fact that we have 11 official languages, English is spoken by 90% of the population.


    Language has nothing to do with the stats of online purchasing. It's access to the internet via a computer. Only 25% of the South African population has internet access. 40% of those 25% only have access at work, not at home.


    Access to cellphones is a completely different story.
    • SA is ranked 5th in World for mobile data usage (1st is Russia, 7th is USA!)
    • 30% of mobile users in SA are active on facebook via their phones
    • 50% of SA facebook users access it via mobile
    • In 2009 there were 2.8 billion please call me’s (USSD)
    • There are more mobile phones in SA than Taxis+TV’s+Radios combined
    • More active sim cards than citizens (Different operators sim cards are used at different times of the day depending on call/text/data cost)
    • 3 tiers of mobile internet access locally (approx figures): 3 mill have full web access, 11 mill through apps (Mxit, email etc), 13 mill through WAP
    Got those stats from here.

    Di
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  • Profile picture of the author Suthan M
    You got this results due to the fact that you are selling a "English version" of this product. :-)

    If you sell a different language, then, the results will be skewed to countries where the language is spoken widely..

    I am interested for products that language is not a barrier: like mobile or desktop games.. I am sure that in this markets, China, Ukraine will definitely be somewhere in the list ..

    Anyone wanna share their experience ? :-)

    Anyway, thanks for the info Thomas!
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  • Profile picture of the author Bballer1
    Thanks for sharing your stats!

    This could come in handy in our marketing campaign.
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    • Profile picture of the author silverfern
      As a Kiwi I would like to commend you on your Grrr for New Zelanders been lumped in with Aussies
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      • Profile picture of the author Thomas
        Originally Posted by DianaHeuser View Post

        Not true. Despite the fact that we have 11 official languages, English is spoken by 90% of the population.
        I stand corrected.

        Originally Posted by DianaHeuser View Post

        Language has nothing to do with the stats of online purchasing. It's access to the internet via a computer. Only 25% of the South African population has internet access. 40% of those 25% only have access at work, not at home.
        That's true but, for an information product only available in English, I feel confident in saying that language is also a factor. For example, the majority of people in the European Union have readily-available Internet access but, for me at least, though nearly all countries were present in the list, the vast majority of sales (>90%) were from the UK and Ireland.

        Originally Posted by Suthan M View Post

        You got this results due to the fact that you are selling a "English version" of this product. :-)

        If you sell a different language, then, the results will be skewed to countries where the language is spoken widely..
        True but, considering English is one of the (top 3) most spoken languages throughout the world, I (probably incorrectly) expected smaller concentrations of buyers across a wider number of countries.

        Originally Posted by silverfern View Post

        As a Kiwi I would like to commend you on your Grrr for New Zelanders been lumped in with Aussies
        Being from Ireland, I can sympathise with the indignity of being lumped in with a much larger neighbour.
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  • Profile picture of the author Duckyshucky
    Wow, these are some really interesting numbers. I imagine they are going to vary dramatically from niche to niche, but still... a very nice thought-provoker.
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  • Profile picture of the author Zack Lim
    Thanks for sharing this excellent stats.

    Haha I am not surprised that Singapore is in the top 10 list as there are many people over here in Singapore who are interested in making money online. Most of them have access to the internet and they have credit cards which allows them to purchase product online.

    But I am rather shock that UAE is in the top 10 list. I think this list will be useful for people who are geo targeting their ads when they are doing their marketing campaign.

    Zack
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