--- title: "Saudi ecommerce is growing. What do the numbers measure? | Nasam" description: "Ecommerce registrations rose, and electronic payments became more common. Neither figure alone tells you whether demand for your products is rising." url: https://nasam.co/en/blog/what-saudi-ecommerce-growth-measures lang: en --- # Saudi ecommerce is growing. What do the numbers measure? Ecommerce registrations rose, and electronic payments became more common. Neither figure alone tells you whether demand for your products is rising. The point National indicators describe the wider market. An expansion decision needs product-level demand, price, cost, and availability. ## Registrations and payments are not sales Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Commerce reported 43,854 active commercial registrations in ecommerce activities in 2025, compared with 40,041 in 2024. The increase is in registrations classified under that activity. It does not tell us how much those businesses sold, whether they sell on Amazon or noon rather than through their own stores, or whether demand rose for any particular category. More sellers can enter a field while demand for one product remains flat. Do not turn registration growth into a forecast for your catalog. [[1]](https://mc.gov.sa/ar/mediacenter/News/Pages/26-04-26-02.aspx) The Saudi Central Bank reported that electronic payments accounted for 85% of individual retail payment transactions by number in 2025, up from 79% in 2024. This describes payment behavior across retail activity broader than marketplaces. It is not the share of sales made on marketplaces, nor a rate of growth in online orders. An electronic payment does not identify the product purchased or the channel through which it was sold. [[2]](https://www.sama.gov.sa/ar-sa/MediaCenter/News/Pages/news-1139.aspx) Both figures are useful when their questions stay separate. Registrations tell you something about the scale of officially recorded ecommerce activity. Payment share tells you how widely electronic payment is used. Neither answers the question behind a large inventory purchase: how many units of this product can you sell, at what price, and after what costs? That answer must come from category and product evidence closer to your own business. **Registrations and payments measure different things** - Commercial registrations 40,041 → 43,854 Ecommerce activity, 2024–2025 - Electronic payment share 79% → 85% Of individual retail payment transactions by number Sources: Ministry of Commerce for active ecommerce registrations; Saudi Central Bank for the electronic share of individual retail payment transactions by number. Neither measures sales in a particular product category. ## Start with the product you might expand Suppose you sell skincare products. A rise in national ecommerce registrations is not, on its own, a reason to order more units. Select the product you are considering, then inspect units sold by channel rather than only total brand revenue. Overall sales can grow because you added a different product while demand for the original item remains unchanged. A large discount can also hide weaker underlying demand behind a higher order count. Separate price from quantity. Were more units sold because customers wanted more of the product, or because you cut the price? Inspect advertising at the same time: did the budget, targeting, or campaign mix change? Look at availability too. A week in which the item was out of stock is a poor measure of normal demand. When comparing two marketplaces, check whether price, product page, delivery date, and available stock were similar enough for the comparison to tell you anything useful. Order volume is only one part of the decision. Ask which products retained contribution after marketplace fees, shipping, advertising, and returns. A fast-selling item with weak margin might need a pricing or fulfillment change before it needs more stock. An item with repeatable demand, healthy margin, and dependable replenishment is a stronger candidate for a limited expansion trial. That assessment comes from your operating data; neither national dataset can supply it. ## More units do not establish higher profit Imagine a product sells 100 units at SAR 100 each in one period, then 120 units at SAR 90 in a comparable period. Units rose by 20%, but revenue rose from SAR 10,000 to SAR 10,800, an increase of 8%. These are illustrative numbers, not market data. They show why price and volume belong in the same view. Without product cost, advertising cost, marketplace fees, and fulfillment cost, even that revenue comparison cannot tell you whether profit rose. The extra units might reflect a temporary discount, higher ad spend, restored availability after a stockout, or a genuine change in customer demand. An order total does not distinguish among those causes. Check the product before and after the change. If you have enough data, compare it with another similar item whose price and advertising did not change. That is not a controlled experiment that proves causation, but it is more informative than attributing every increase to market growth. Product mix creates another trap. If more smaller packs or lower-priced variants were sold, the average selling price can fall even when the price of each individual item did not change. Compare the same product and the same variant, including pack size or color, across the two periods. Without that discipline, a blended average can lead you to reorder a product whose own performance never improved. ## Compare periods that can actually be compared Attach a date and definition to every figure you use. Do not compare a full year with one month, or a promotion week with an ordinary week as though conditions were the same. Choose equal periods for the same product, then note any change in price, discount, advertising, and availability. Where a product has a clear season, a comparable period in the previous season may be useful if the data is reliable. When several things change at once, the comparison cannot isolate one cause. Read three outcomes together: units sold, contribution after selling costs, and the ability to replenish. Higher units with lower contribution do not automatically justify another inventory purchase. Higher units and contribution may still be hard to repeat if the supplier cannot deliver in time. Repeated stockouts can also conceal unmet demand. Check days in stock before calling an item slow or deciding that its market is small. A national statistic can prompt a good question: is there a category worth investigating? It cannot answer a purchase-order or advertising-budget decision. Let the broad source generate a hypothesis, and test that hypothesis against product data. The closer the decision is to committing money or stock, the closer the evidence should be to what you actually sell. ## Decide when to widen the trial Before sending a large quantity to a new marketplace, choose a small product set, a review period, and an amount of stock you can afford to hold if the test disappoints. Record the expected selling price, marketplace fees, delivery cost, and a minimum acceptable contribution. Compare actual orders, contribution, and days of stock with those expectations. This turns expansion into a decision based on an observable result, not a reaction to a national headline. Increase the allocation when demand repeats without discounts consuming the margin and you can replenish before the product sells out. If most orders came from one short campaign, test another period before treating that level as normal. If a product sells in the new marketplace but earns less than it did in an existing channel, account for the stock that moved away from the established channel. More orders in one place do not necessarily mean more profitable orders for the brand overall. The next step can be modest: select one product and compare its units, price, contribution, and availability across two equivalent periods. Write down what changed and what remains uncertain. Then design a small test that can resolve a buying or pricing decision. The Ministry of Commerce and Central Bank figures provide useful context for that work. Product evidence determines what you do next. ## Sources - [Ministry of Commerce: ecommerce registrations in 2025](https://mc.gov.sa/ar/mediacenter/News/Pages/26-04-26-02.aspx) - [Saudi Central Bank: share of individual retail payment transactions (Arabic release)](https://www.sama.gov.sa/ar-sa/MediaCenter/News/Pages/news-1139.aspx) NASAM LETTER ## One useful email a week A short read on markets, growth, and the economics of selling. Free, with an unsubscribe link in every email. See how we use your email in our [privacy policy](https://nasam.co/en/privacy). ## Keep reading