MakeCommerce e-commerce index

What’s a MakeCommerce e-commerce index?

MakeCommerce mediates a large number of payments made in Estonian e-shops every day. As our merchants include both large and well-known retail chains as well as small start-ups, we can make generalizations about the entire Estonian e-commerce sector by analyzing all transactions.

What does the index consist of?

The MakeCommerce e-commerce index takes into account weekly transactions in almost three thousand mainly, Estonian e-shops.

How is it calculated?

The basis is the transaction volumes in euros that have passed through the MakeCommerce. The initial value 100 of the index is fixed on the basis of the first week of 2019. The value of 200 thus means that the transaction volume of the respective week was twice as high as the starting week of 2019.

What can the index be used for?

The main purpose of the index is to provide a weekly overview of e-commerce volume trends. Among other things, merchants can assess whether its e-business is growing faster or slower than the market average, the effects of big campaigns like E-Monday and Black Friday, but also Christmas. It also provides input on the impact of various emergencies on e-commerce. A striking example is the Covid-19 crisis.

What bottlenecks need to be taken into account when using statistics?

Giving an adequate answer to the question of how big the local e-commerce market is or how fast it is growing has proved to be a challenge for any organization trying to provide that answer. First of all, what should be covered by e-commerce in the first place? Are online ticket sales e-commerce? What about hotel reservations? The first down payment to buy an apartment, which started on the real estate company’s website? Donations through an NGO’s website? As there is no official definition, no activity is excluded from our calculation.

Another possible discussion point is what to consider as local e-commerce. If an Estonian company sells worldwide via a .com page, is it Estonian e-commerce? If a company registered abroad has set up a .ee domain and accepts payments with Estonian bank links, is it Estonian e-commerce? Once again, we have not considered it expedient to try to start compiling all possible versions. The majority of the MakeCommerce customers are Estonian companies and the majority of payments are made through Estonian banks. It could therefore be a suitable tool for monitoring the market trend, but not for comparing percentages.

Third, it should be borne in mind that different trading sectors may grow at different rates and this will dissolve in the average index view. Some sectors may be less represented in the MakeCommerce merchant base than in the market as a whole. Unfortunately, the market here is too small to monitor e-commerce by sector and, moreover, it would be impractical to strictly compartmentalize e-shops into one or another area of ​​activity.

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