E-commerce is on the rise in Europe. The proportion of consumers age 16-74 who made a purchase online in the 12 months prior to a recent survey stood at 53% in 2015, compared with 43% in a 2012 report.
The 53% represents a high-water mark and exceeds the European Commission’s Digital Agenda goals for technology adoption in the region, including online shopping. The commission’s first agenda in 2010 set a target of 50% of the region’s total population shopping online by 2015.
81% of individuals in the target age group in the 28-country European Union used the Internet in the 12 months prior to a new survey, and 65% of those regular Internet users bought or ordered goods or services for private use, an increase of 15 percentage points from 2007, according to a report by Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency.
The Eurostat report, titled “E-commerce statistics for individuals,” also found that 30% of European online shoppers purchased goods or services from sellers in other EU countries, up from 25% in a 2012 report. And 18% of those bought from sellers outside the EU, compared with 13% in 2012. Cross-border shopping growth could explain a three percentage point decline in the number of shoppers (88%) who bought products online from merchants in their own country in the 12 months prior to the survey.
The 2015 survey results in the Eurostat report are based on responses from 151,685 households with at least one person age 16-74, and 202,185 individuals in that age group across the EU. Individuals were asked about the last time they used the Internet, how often they used it, use away from home or usual place of work, activities relating to online government services and e-commerce, and Internet skills.
Data came from all member states and some non-EU countries, including Norway, Macedonia and Turkey. Most countries collected data in the second quarter of 2015. The time period for the questions on frequency of online shopping and amounts spent was the three months prior to the survey. For data relating to the other e-commerce activities, the period was the 12 months prior to the survey.
The report also notes that:
- The proportion of web shoppers varied widely across member states, ranging from 87% in the United Kingdom to 18% in Romania.
- The most popular type of goods purchased online in the EU was clothes and sporting goods (60% of e-buyers). Online shoppers age 16-24 were the top age group when it came to clothes and sporting goods purchases (67%), those age 25-54 in buying household goods (45%), and the older age group (55-74) in online purchases of travel and holiday accommodations (57%).
- Over eight in 10 Internet users in the U.K. (87%), Germany and Denmark (both 82%) bought goods on the Internet in the previous 12 months. But fewer than 40% had shopped online in Romania (18%), Bulgaria (31%), Cyprus (32%) and Italy (39%).
- People age 25-54 were the most frequent online buyers: 16% of web shoppers in this age group bought online 6-10 times in the three months prior to the survey and 14% did so even more often.
- Four in 10 online shoppers said they spent 100-499 euros ($109-$544) online in the three months prior to the survey. Individuals age 16-24 led in online buys worth less than 100 euros ($109) and those age 25-54 led in purchases of 100-499 euros. Purchases worth over 500 euros ($545) were least common among all age groups.
- The proportions of the population with no experience of Internet use, whether at home, at work or elsewhere, were highest in Bulgaria (35%), Romania (32%) and Greece (30%), and lowest in Luxembourg (2%), Denmark (3%), the Netherlands (4%), Finland and Sweden (both 5%), and the U.K. (6%).