This country brief is part of an eleven-part series exploring the landscape of B2C e-commerce marketplaces in various East Asian economies. This series offers in-depth insights into the traffic trends for active e-commerce websites, national established and emerging key players, main characteristics of the marketplaces, ease of online selling, the degree of specialization in terms of products as well as the products characteristics.

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Mongolia shows a significant internet penetration rate (98%) and a moderate proportion of its population purchases goods online (42%). In addition, the density of B2C marketplaces is relatively high with 66 B2C marketplaces for a population of 3.4 million (capturing 0.17% of the total traffic in the region studied).

Over the period 2019-2022, traffic on the 66 B2C marketplaces fell significantly from 54 to 37.8 million visits. Among them, online shopping malls account for the largest proportion of marketplaces (66.7%) but classified sites capture most of the traffic (66.2%).

The e-commerce market is dominated by international companies (72.5%), including first and foremost the United States (47%). Of the total 66 B2C marketplaces, a commendable proportion are held by domestic companies (27.5%) and China is third holding 9% of the operating companies.

The e-commerce market is highly concentrated with the Top 10 online marketplaces capturing 91.3% of total traffic. This Top 10 is largely dominated by online shopping malls, 7 in total, though the leader (Unegui.mn) is a classified site held by a domestic company. Mongolian companies account for half of the Top 10, followed by the United States (3).

Regarding the ease of selling on these B2C marketplaces, 71% of them allow foreign sellers to operate and 65% offer open registration to online sellers. A significant proportion of these marketplaces are fully transactional (61%) but, as a corollary, 59% require trading fees to be able to sell online.

Mongolia has a balanced proportion of generic (56%) and specialized B2C marketplaces (44%). Among the 29 specialized marketplaces, 31% specialize in fashion, accessories, and shoes (capturing only 26% of the traffic). However, the traffic dynamics also show that consumers’ preferences lean towards buying automotive parts (capturing 54% of the traffic).