We passed through the third quarter of 2021 with an 11% growth in global ecommerce sales.
It has even accelerated from the second quarter, which saw a smaller growth of rate of a mild 2%.
The catch, however, is that compared to the third quarter of 2020, it’s crystal clear that global ecommerce growth is slowing down.
When it comes to Europe, ecommerce sales even seem to be returning to its pre-pandemic levels. 
Around the world, it appears that ecommerce stores are reaching levels of sales as before the pandemic.
On the continent, Eastern Europe is growing at a much faster rate than the global average, achieving growth of 40% in the third quarter compared to the same period last year.
In comparison, growth in the UK registered 20%, the Netherlands 18%, and Italy 15%.
Year-on-year growth reached 11% during the third quarter of 2021 while in the same period last year hit 63%.
Global conversion rates
When it comes to the global conversion rate, in the third quarter it stood at 2.4%.
Yet there was a wide discrepancy between countries and regions.
As we can see from the graph above, the region with the highest levels of conversion rates was Australasia – New Zealand and Australia recorded conversion rates of 3.6%.
In the miniature world of conversion rates, this is pretty impressive. Equally impressive is the distance between Australasia and second place, the Netherlands, which had a conversion rate of 3.2%.
In third place is the United Kingdom, which has a conversion rate of 2.8%, followed by the US in fourth place, on 2.5%.
These are the only countries and regions that have conversion rates above the global average of 2.4%. Canada, Germany, and Belgium all straddle the global average, with Italy, Spain, and Japan well below the global average ranging between 1.4% and 1.2%.
Conversion rates in Asia-Pacific, the largest ecommerce market in the world, were recorded at 1.3% while in Latin America it was 1.2%. 
Belgian spotlight
The country that gives us buttery chocolate and potent beer has abandoned cart rates that are lower than the global average.
Online stores in Belgium saw their conversion rates hit the global average, yet their cart abandonment rate is lower than the average. They recorded an abandoned cart rate via desktop of 66% while the global average was 77%.
It was also lower than the global average on tablet, with abandoned cart rates in Belgium 74% with the global average 81%.
And on mobile, it continues to beat the global average but at a much lesser gap. Abandoned cart rates in Belgium on mobile was 83% while the global average was 86%.
The same trend was found in both the Netherlands (abandoned cart rates of 69% on desktop, 78% on tablet, and 80% on mobile) and the UK (74%, 76%, and 83%).
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