UK is ecommerce market of choice for Europeans

Consumers from Germany are some of the most eager online shoppers for UK goods and services, with 32% of Germans surveyed saying they have bought goods online from the UK in the last 12 months.

In Italy (32%) and Sweden (30%), more shoppers bought goods online from the UK than they did anywhere else, except China, and the UK is now the third largest market for ecommerce trade in Spain, and the Netherlands, fast gaining ground on Germany in terms of the value of e- transactions.

However, while Trustly’s ‘State of Online Shopping’ report demonstrates the strength and pace of UK ecommerce, British shoppers are far less reliant on other EU countries for online goods, preferring to buy from China and the US.

Nearly one in four (38%) UK shoppers have bought something online from another country in the past 12 months. Of those, 45% purchased goods from China, 36% from the US and 16% from Germany. Other online transactions were made in France (10%) and Spain (6%).

However, most people said they would do more cross-border shopping if they didn’t have to give out their card numbers to unknown foreign merchants (55%) or if they could get refunds quicker and easier (50%). More than half (52%) said the exchange rate was an issue when buying abroad.

Nearly six in ten (57%) of UK shoppers have bought food and beverages online, making these the most frequent purchases by far. 17% of respondents said they have bought food and drink at least 11 times in the last 12 months. Other frequent purchases (more than 11 times in the last 12 months) include subscription services for film and TV (10%), online gambling (10%), clothes, accessories, shoes or jewellery (8%), videos and music (5%) and books newspapers and magazines (5%).

With 32% of online shoppers in Germany making at least one purchase from the UK in the last 12 months, the UK becomes the second largest destination for online shopping in Germany, after China.

Consumers from all but one of the Continental European countries surveyed said they bought goods more frequently from the UK than they did from the US. The only exception was France, where online shoppers favourite market was China (37%), followed by Germany (30%) and the US (20%). The UK trailed fourth with 19% of online shoppers buying from the UK.

The research was conducted in collaboration with Nepa, a research bureau and the first partner of Facebook operating outside of the US.

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