British pensioners lead Europe in online shopping

Sunday, December 18, 2016 - 11:14 by Graham Miller

New figures from Colliders International show that people over the age of 65 who live in the UK are more likely to shop online than any of their continental counterparts, according to the Telegraph.

Almost 80 per cent of Brits who fall into this age group said that they regularly take advantage of e-commerce sites to buy products and services. By contrast, the European country in which seniors are least active is Italy, where just 25 per cent of older people enjoy safe shopping online.

The study looked at the state of e-commerce from a global perspective, finding that the UK is a world leader when it comes to encouraging all generations to make the most of the tools that are available to them online.

When considering the population as a whole, the report found that 93 per cent of adults in the UK actively participate in the online space. When looking solely at the over 65s, this falls to 75 per cent, suggesting that many older people primarily use the internet to shop online and perhaps overlook many of its other benefits.

Each year online sales in the UK generate £130 billion, which is another factor that puts it ahead of the rest of Europe. In terms of how much money is spent via mobile devices, only Australia and China are ahead of Britain at the moment, with even the US failing to match the UK’s m-commerce sales.

Report spokesperson, Paul Souber, said that while people might assume that shopping trends across the developed world are roughly the same, the reality was that different countries were embracing e-commerce and m-commerce at different rates, with generational differences being broken down more comprehensively in some places than in others around the globe.