Online shopping in South Korea grew 20 percent in October from a year earlier as the new coronavirus outbreak prompted people to buy goods via e-commerce platforms, data showed Thursday.

The value of online transactions stood at 14.2 trillion won ($12.9 billion) in October, compared with 11.9 trillion won the previous year, according to the data from Statistics Korea.

The use of online shopping has been on the rise this year amid the pandemic as people refrained from visiting offline stores on concerns about infection risks.

Online sales of food delivery services jumped 71.6 percent from a year earlier to 1.56 trillion won in October on the back of demand by stay-at-home customers. Sales of food and beverages also soared 43.8 percent to 1.7 trillion won.

Online sales of electronic goods gained 39.6 percent on-year to 1.72 trillion won in October, the data showed.

But online sales of travel-related services and cultural and leisure services declined on-year in October due to the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sales of travel-related items declined 52.6 percent on-year to 679.6 billion won, while those of cultural and leisure services tumbled 60.4 percent to 74.2 billion won.

Purchases made through smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices rose 22.9 percent on-year to 9.54 trillion won in October, accounting for 66.9 percent of the total value of online shopping. (Yonhap)