Cyprus yet to embrace online shopping
Although online shopping continues to grow across Europe, especially due to COVID-19 restrictions, Cyprus (52%) lies in the bottom four of EU countries for internet purchases. With high street shopping affected by the pandemic and changes in habits and preferences, ecommerce can be expected to grow further.
According to Eurostat, in the 12 months before the 2020 survey, 89% of people aged 16 to 74 in the EU had used the internet, 72% of whom had bought or ordered goods or services for private use.
Online shopping increased by 4 percentage points (pp) compared with 2019 (68% of internet users) and by 10 pp compared with 2015 (62%).
More than 8 in 10 internet users in the Netherlands (91%), Denmark (90%), Germany (87%), Sweden (86%) and Ireland (81%) had bought or ordered goods or services over the internet in the 12 months before the survey.
On the other hand, fewer than 50% had shopped online in Bulgaria (42%), Romania (45%) and Italy (49%; 2019 data), then follows Cyprus with 52% in 2020 (from 45% in 2019).
In Greece, this rate was 59% in 2020 (up from 51% in 2019).
Over the last five years, the largest increases in online shopping among internet users were recorded in Romania (+27 percentage points (pp), Czechia and Croatia (both +25 pp) as well as Hungary (+23 pp).
In the 3 months before the survey, the most common online purchases were clothes (incl. sport clothing), shoes or accessories (ordered by 64% of online shoppers).
Wearables were followed by films or series as a streaming service or downloads (32%), deliveries from restaurants, fast-food chains and catering services (29%), furniture, home accessories or gardening products (28%), cosmetics, beauty or wellness products (27%), printed books, magazines or newspapers (27%), computers, tablets, mobile phones or their accessories (26%) and music as a streaming service or downloads (26%).