Global e-commerce spend hits 22 per cent

Wednesday, May 30, 2012 - 13:35 by Mike Price

Almost a quarter of a consumer's annual outgoings are now spent via safe shopping online, according to a study published this month by WorldPay.

While e-commerce services are still available to a relatively small proportion of the world's population, the global study discovered that people spend an average of five hours using online shopping sites, every month.

Amazon was deemed to be the most popular e-commerce site of them all, with 43 per cent of respondents stating that they had used it at some point in the last quarter. This was even higher in the net-savvy UK, where 90 per cent of people claimed to be regular Amazon users.

Rival site, eBay, is a little further behind Amazon, with a 33 per cent usage rating on an international scale and a 57 per cent rating in the UK.

In terms of the popularity of individual types of e-commerce outlet, almost a third of people cited the all-encompassing department store experience as being their favourite, with fashion outlets and consumer electronics coming a close second and third, respectively.

Laptop computers are still one of the most popular ways to browse sites that offer safe shopping online, with 55 per cent of those questioned saying that they used this type of device for their e-commerce activities. Nineteen per cent said that they shopped from smartphones and 11 per cent cited tablets as being their go-to online retail device of choice.

Emerging nations, such as China and India, tend to have much higher percentages of consumers using portable devices like smartphones to make e-commerce purchases, since these are typically cheaper and easier to get online than a traditional PC or laptop. Meanwhile, 25 per cent of the 19,000 people who took part in the study said that they have invested in a smart TV set capable of making online sales.