E-commerce uptake lags in Botswana despite mobile surge
Lewanika Timothy | Monday August 25, 2025 09:11
Local consumers have continued to swim against the global trend of online shopping with other financial datasets showing that consumers continue to prefer to deal in cash for purchases.
A household ICT study conducted by Statistics Botswana depicted disparaging trends in the countries uptake of ecommerce in the period between 2014 and 2024. The data shows that over 142,000 people engaged in online shopping last year, a marginal rise of 3.3 percentage points since 2014, when 4.6 percent of the population used e-commerce.
The figures highlight how, even as mobile phone usage has grown by 32.8% in a decade to reach 1.5 million users, the shift from cash-based transactions to digital marketplaces has barely taken root. Researchers at Statistics Botswana said that a meagre 7.9 percent of people used e-commerce to procure or sell goods in the country showing a growth of 3.3 percent since 2014.
“The 2024 ICT Survey revealed that the absorption of Electronic Commerce in Botswana is still relatively low,” the researchers noted.
“The number of individuals who used e-commerce in 2024 stood at 142,721 individuals, constituting only 7.9 percent of total individuals which is an increase of only 3.3 percentage points from 4.6 percent observed in 2014,” the researchers highlighted.
A change in consumer preference was also noticed by researchers in their study, with a majority of the online purchases being for clothes, shoes, and accessories and a strong adoption for online buying of food also gaining traction.
“The majority (71.7%) of e-commerce users purchased clothing, footwear, sporting goods, or accessories in 2024. Online purchasing of food, groceries, alcohol, or tobacco is shown to have also increased in 2024, with 31.7% of e-commerce users making such purchases compared to just 3.6 percent in 2014,” the researchers observed.
The data centre collects information via user-targeted household surveys, which are conducted every five years as part of a sequenced survey programme.
E-commerce was common in urban areas as those who were engaged in it in 2024 made up 86.9% of the total as compared to 13.1% in rural areas. The capital city, Gaborone, had the highest number of e-commerce users, with 36,619 individuals.
Foreign sellers, particularly from Asia, have increased their market share in Botswana’s digital market.
“Asian sellers have also gained significant market share at 34% whilst SADC and European sellers have seen a decline in the market share in 2024” researchers noted.
Previously a research paper by the Bank of Botswana (BoB) showed that the use of fiat notes or cash in Botswana grew by over 100% between 2011 and 2023, making the country an outlier as the world embraces newer payment technology, including cryptocurrencies.
Financial data extrapolated from 2011 as a base year shows that Batswana prefer to use cash as a means of transacting goods and services, with the local economy noticing a growing surge in the use of cash, whilst also seeing growth in its other payment forms such as Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).
“Cash demand, as measured by cash in circulation, increased by 110% from P2 billion in 2011 to P4.2 billion in 2023,” the BoB said in its report. “The demand was driven by the highest banknote denomination (P200), implying that cash was mostly used for the store of value or precautionary purpose.”