Online shopping has soared to new heights, up by 40% in the last two years, according to the latest Nielsen Global Online Survey.
The survey on Internet shopping habits found that more than 85% of the world’s online population has used the Internet to shop and more than half of Internet users have made at least one online purchase in the past month. In total, about 875 million people worldwide have shopped online, up 40% from just 627 million two years ago when the survey was first conducted.
“As our lives become more fractured and cluttered, it isn’t surprising that consumers turn to the unrivalled convenience of the Internet when it comes to researching and buying products,” Jonathan Carson, international president of Nielsen Online said in a release.
South Korea has the highest percentage of Internet users shopping online with 99% followed by the U.K., Germany and Japan with 97%. The U.S. came in eighth with 94%.
The most popularly purchased items are books (41% purchased in the past three months), clothing/accessories/shoes (36%), videos/DVDs/games, airline tickets (24%) and electronics (23%).
According to Nielsen, shoppers stick to the sites that they know, with 60% of online purchasers saying they mostly buy from the same site. One third of shoppers used a search engine or surfed for the best online store, and one in four relies on personal recommendations.
Credit cards are the most common online payment method, with 60% of online shoppers used their plastic, while one in four used PayPal.
