New figures from Eurostat indicate that 86% of UK shoppers made a purchase online in 2017, making it the EU country with the highest level of e-commerce penetration.
Sweden (84%), Germany (82%), Netherlands (82%), Luxembourg (82%), France (76%), Finland (75%), Austria (70%) and Slovakia (70%) are other European Union members in which online shopping penetration is higher than the EU average (68%).
At the other end of the spectrum, just 23% of Romanian consumers shopped online last year, the findings indicate, with low numbers also evident in Bulgaria (27%) and Cyprus (39%).
Eurostat released the findings earlier this week to coincide with Cyber Monday.
'Increasingly Widespread'
'Online shopping is becoming increasingly widespread in the European Union (EU) as consumers appreciate the advantages, such as being able to shop anytime and anywhere, having access to a broader range of products and being able to compare prices easily,' the group said.
'Among people in the EU who had used the internet in the year prior to the 2017 survey, 68% were online shoppers compared with 50% in 2007.'
Over the last 10 years, the share of online shoppers in the EU has increased for all age groups, but most notably for younger internet users aged 16 to 24 years, which rose from 44% in 2007 to 71 % in 2017.
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
