On-line revenues in the Czech Republic are expected to grow by 25 percent this year to CZK 194 billion. Growth estimates have accellerated through the year however. In January, the best guess from the Association for Electronic Commerce (APEK) was 15 percent, but it increased this estimate to 20 percent by April. That was the month when thanks to the pandemic, online sales rose by 40 percent compared to a year ago. “E-shops and e-commerce experienced and are experiencing a successful year, even though it’s in a context that isn’t at all positive…Czechs came to have a stronger relationship to online shopping during the state of emergency,” said Jan Vetyska, executive director at APEK. While the rest of the economy is suffering under the impact, companies that depend primarily on online sales are in relatively good shape. Vetyska says that depending on the state of the pandemic in the fall, the traditional last-minute rush to buy gifts before the Christmas holidays could end up being spread out over several months of the fall.
