The number of people in the EU who are buying items online has continued to rise, reaching 53% in 2015, up from an average of 30% in 2007.
This means that one out of every two EU residents aged between 16 and 74 ordered goods or services on the internet this year.
The Brits proved to be the most ardent online purchasers, with 81% of the total population using the internet to shop. The Danes were just about as keen, followed by people in Luxembourg, Germany and the Netherlands.
People in Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus and even Italy were the most infrequent online shoppers. Of course, lack of funds could be one clear reason for preventing more people from shopping online.
The Portuguese were modest in their approach, with 31% (or one in every three residents) buying through the internet. This varied with age groups – more than half of people aged between 16 and 44 ordered online and the percentages gradually tapered off among older people.
Overall the most popular items for buyers across the EU was clothes (60%), followed by travel and holiday accommodation (52%), household goods and toys (40%), tickets for events (37%) and books (33%).
Portuguese tastes in online purchases were very similar. Of the purchases that were made 49% were clothes, 55% travel, 24% household goods, 31% tickets for events and 32% books.
Stopping people from online shopping were a strong preference for many to shop in person and fears over payment security and privacy concerns. Some others were worried about how to receive items or about having to return them.
The majority of people who did make purchases on the internet said they had not had any problems – 70%. The problems they did have mostly centred around slower than expected delivery (15%) and technical failure of the website (12%).
