Online shopping takes a hit as internet consumers feel the pinch
Linking the fall in online purchasing to the decline in economic activity, researchers claim there has also been a drop in people using the internet for research.
Some 40% of Irish internet users are aged 25 to 44, according to the study by Dublin-based digital company called Net Behaviour.
Some of the online purchases taking the biggest hit are flights, down 5%, hotel bookings by 7% and videos and DVDs by 5%.
The decline was also seen in how people searched the web, said Emmet Kelly, operations director with Net Behaviour.
“While it’s possible that consumers are becoming more internet savvy by needing to search less when they need to make a purchase, this indicates that Irish internet users are less keen to look for ways to spend their money than was previously the case,” said Mr Kelly.
The research found a drop of around 4% in the amount of time that consumers in Ireland spend online researching products to buy. Online research on clothing and accessories is down by 10%, on electrical goods by 8%, on videos and DVDs by 8% and on books and magazines by 9%.
“The general decline in economic activity — in Ireland and overseas — over the last year has almost certainly been the major factor in the fall in online purchasing activity. In particular, consumers are less willing to spend the kind of money on luxury items than that they would have happily spent a year ago,” added Mr Kelly.
The report found that RTE.ie is now Ireland’s second busiest website, after Google, with the Aer Lingus and Ryanair sites ranked third and fourth respectively.
When it comes to shopping, Ebay leads the online shopping sector with a massive 36% of the market. Amazon follows in second with 25%, Argos has 21% and BuyandSell at 19%.
Google is the clear winner as a search engine and is visited at least once a day by 64% of Irish internet users, while Yahoo! is used by 21% of internet users for their daily searches.
