The number of people in the UK purchasing on the internet has more than doubled since the beginning of the year, according to research by Experian, an information solutions company.
The survey confirms that people are starting to buy more frequently on the internet, with 1.45 million consumers making four or more purchases since January. The most popular items purchased were holidays, books, computer games and music. The findings have been gathered from a survey of over half a million internet.
The key findings from Experian's survey are:
- The proportion of the UK population purchasing over the web in the last twelve months has more than doubled from 5.1% (2.26 million adults) at the beginning of 2000, to 10.7% (4.7 million adults) now.
- Some 3.3% of the UK adult population - around 1.45 million people - have made four or more purchases since the start of the year. At the same time, the proportion of adults that has bought just once in the last 12 months has decreased from 35% to 27%, but the proportion purchasing four or more times in the last twelve months has increased by over a quarter from 24% to 31%. This suggests that people are starting to purchase more frequently.
- Holidays, books, computer games and music remain the most popular purchases, and each of these categories is increasing as a proportion of online purchases. Holiday purchasing is up a fifth from 14% to 17% of online purchases. This growth may well be due to increasing transparency and availability of last minute/discount bookings services from airlines and tour operators, supported by serious above-the-line campaigns in broadcast and print media as well as online advertising.
- Internet shoppers are mainly younger and wealthier people. Measured against the national norm, the age group most over-represented amongst online shoppers is 18-25 (more than double the national average). However, a significant number of online shoppers are in the 26-45 age bracket. 26-35 year olds are over-represented at almost 166% of national norm, whereas 36-45 year olds are a fifth up on the national average. The survey also reveals significant purchasing activity from the over 55 age bracket (known as Silver Surfers). Although this represents half the national norm as a proportion of the online purchaser community, Silver Surfers now conduct a fifth of all online purchases.
- A significant percentage of online shoppers do not consider the internet a valuable educational resource (37%), while just 22% said that it was valuable. The remainder (41%) were neutral on this question.
