Deficit in Online Trade
Korea is in the red in online trade. These days, the size of e-trading is growing at an explosive pace worldwide. The European Union is planning to triple the ratio of e-commerce users to 20 percent by 2020, and the United States is going to increase the ratio of B2C transactions to 27.3 percent by 2020 as well. Japan and the U.S. are working on a new e-commerce platform in collaboration with each other.
Korea, in the meantime, has produced no significant results in spite of its efforts for e-commerce promotion. According to the Korea Customs Service, Korea recorded an overseas direct purchase of US$1.54491 billion last year, but the reverse direct purchase amount was limited to US$28.08 million during the period. Given that the average won-dollar exchange rate was 1,053.1 won per U.S. dollar last year, the online trade deficit amounts to 1.597 trillion won, or US$1.468 billion.
Also, the size of the deficit is growing faster and faster to compound the matter. The deficit for 2014 is about 5.5 times that for 2010. This is mainly because of old regulations, such as Active X, that block foreign consumers from purchasing goods on Korean online shopping sites.
Other obstacles include the complexity of the process for getting the membership in a Korean online shopping mall, and the poor translation of product information. In contrast, both membership subscription and purchasing are very simple and easy on Amazon.com.