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Wednesday, 6th June 2012, 15:10:33
E-commerce accounts for 1 in 3 UK purchases
UK internet users make almost a third of all their shopping transactions online, new research shows.
According to the latest Mediascope Europe study by IAB Europe, consumers in the UK spend 23 per cent of their total retail budget through e-commerce, a higher proportion than any other country on the continent.
Online shopping is increasingly popular in Europe, where the majority of users shop online (87 per cent) and nearly a fifth use internet retailers exclusively as opposed to bricks-and-mortar stores.
In the six months between September 2011 and February 2012, shoppers on the continent spent a total of euro;188 billion (pound;151 billion).
Its not only the transactions themselves that shoppers use the web for as some 96 per cent of European internet surfers go online to research their products.
One of the reasons that the European e-commerce market is so successful could be the sheer amount of time that users are spending online.
The increasing prevalence of mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones has enabled web users to access the internet on-the-go and even from more than one electronic item at a time, rather than relying on a single desktop or laptop computer.
It is perhaps unsurprising therefore that 65 per cent of European internet users go online every week and more than a third use the internet on more than one device.
Alison Fennah, vice president of research and marketing for IAB Europe noted that this allows consumers to multitask, which advertisers can then take advantage of.
Many Europeans are clearly using the web and watching TV simultaneously, and a third of those are actually consumingcomplementary content.
Those companies that understand and adapt to these changing consumption patterns will be the ones that succeed in the future, she said.
One of the ways in which businesses are increasingly trying to connect with potential customers is through paid search.
Andrew Warren-Payne, a research analyst at Econsultancy said: The ability to target customers in a highly specific and measurable way, and to alter campaigns quickly in line of rapid market changes, continues to ensure that paid search remains a highly attractive channel for marketers.
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Tags: Shopping Transactions
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