Israeli Online Shopping Rebounds as Summer Travel and Swimwear Drive Demand
Israeli online purchases continued to recover in May after the drop in orders that followed Operation "Shield and Arrow," but the rebound was uneven. International sites recorded a 38% monthly increase, while Israeli sites rose only 4%, according to Shop Analytics, which monitors online shopping by Israelis. Nati Yaacobi, the company’s CEO, said the e-commerce market, which had been thrown off balance by "Shield and Arrow," is returning to equilibrium, and that the strong showing by travel sites reflects many Israelis’ desire to go on vacation.
Among international retailers, AliExpress, Shein and Temu led the field and together accounted for 73% of all orders. AliExpress remained first and grew by about one-third from April, with purchase frequency at 2.3 orders per person, compared with 1.9 on Shein and Temu. iHerb ranked fourth, with about 22% more orders than the previous month. The article noted that iHerb had benefited from the expanded VAT exemption to $130, and after that exemption ended on June 2, the share of expensive orders is expected to fall. Only about a quarter of orders are now expected to exceed $75, compared with half during the expanded exemption.
Travel was the clearest seasonal trend. Booking.com placed fifth, with about 30% more orders, mainly for trips to Europe and the Far East. Agoda ranked ninth, with demand centered on Thailand, Japan, Sri Lanka and Singapore. Wizz Air closed the top 10 after resuming service in Israel in May, with bookings mainly to Britain, Hungary, Poland and Malta.
On the Israeli side, the top three were all marketplace platforms. KSP was first, up 15% month over month, with an average purchase of NIS 298 and a weighted average discount of 14% after seasonal and holiday promotions. Super-Pharm Online was second, up 8%, with about a quarter of orders coming from third-party sellers. Shufersal was third, up 21%, though non-core categories still made up only 4% of its orders. For the first time in a long while, the three largest Israeli airlines all appeared in the index: El Al at seventh, Arkia at eighth and Israir at eleventh, with most bookings for European destinations, the UAE, nearby overseas trips and domestic flights to Eilat. Gotex Swimwear entered the list at 18th, doubling orders from April, helped partly by influencer coupon codes and regular discounts of 10% to 12%.
