Progress and Challenges for eCommerce in Trinidad and Tobago
By Earl Rennie, Director of Digital Strategy
4 min readFirst published . Refreshed .
Ecommerce in Trinidad and Tobago has come a long way from the days when buying online meant a courier box from Miami. A national strategy, real payment gateways and pandemic-era habits moved local online shopping from novelty to normal. The gaps that remain are delivery, trust and connectivity, and they are exactly where a prepared merchant can win.
Back in 2019 we wrote about why ecommerce in T&T was stuck. Government estimates at the time put local online spending with US retailers somewhere between US$500 million and US$1 billion a year, nearly all of it leaving the country through courier boxes. Local stores barely factored. This post tracks what has changed since, what still holds merchants back, and what to do about it.
The Progress Is Real.
The National eCommerce Strategy 2017-2021 did the unglamorous groundwork. It addressed regulatory gaps, set up an Electronic Funds Transfer framework, and pushed the ICT infrastructure forward, which together made it far easier to open an online store and actually get paid.
Consumer confidence followed. UNCTAD's regional research showed online shopping across Latin America and the Caribbean climbing from around 14% of the population in 2019 to roughly 21% in 2020, with the pandemic doing years of persuasion in a matter of months. Once the big local corporations proved online buying worked, smaller businesses followed them in.
Payments matured too. PowerTranz, formerly First Atlantic Commerce, established itself as the regional standard for card payments that settle to local banks. WiPay expanded its services, Fygaro made all-in-one store setup easier, and Scotiabank added its own eCom gateway. Local banks also introduced Visa Debit cards that work for online purchases in TT dollars, a genuine unlock even if some cardholders still hit snags completing TTD transactions.
The Groundwork That Got Us Here.
The 2019 picture was blunt. No electronic funds transfer framework, banks skeptical about funding ecommerce, patchy connectivity, and no meaningful consumer protections for buying online. The government's response ran through the five goals of the National eCommerce Strategy, an effective regulatory environment, an EFT framework, more private sector participation, greater consumer awareness and confidence, and stronger ICT infrastructure for commerce.
Alongside it sat Vision 2030 and the "fast forward II" National ICT Plan, plus consumer-facing measures like a new Consumer Protection Act, an online Consumer Affairs portal and public education campaigns on shopping online safely. None of it made headlines, and almost all of it mattered.
What Still Holds Merchants Back.
Connectivity first. The World Bank's 2021 figures put internet penetration at about 79% with roughly 141 mobile subscriptions per 100 people, decent coverage that still thins out in rural areas. The Telecommunications Authority's 2020 National Broadband Plan set a target of universal access to high-speed broadband, and progress on that target directly feeds ecommerce growth.
Trust is next. Shoppers who were burned once by a sketchy checkout or a vanished order do not come back quickly, so merchants carry the burden of proving their payment systems and their promises are solid.
And delivery remains the hardest problem in local ecommerce. Slow or unpredictable fulfilment, vague return policies and surprise costs kill repeat business faster than any pricing mistake.
What Merchants Should Do Next.
The encouraging part is that every remaining gap is something an individual merchant can outperform. Take payments seriously and use a gateway that settles locally. Publish honest delivery times and honest rates. Put trust signals where nervous first-time buyers can see them. Then market the store like you mean it.
We wrote the step-by-step version of exactly that in our guide to how to sell online in Trinidad, covering where to sell, getting paid, delivery and marketing in order. If you are weighing up a store of your own, start there.
