Online shopping ever more popular in 2020

Online shopping is continuing to grow in the European Union (EU). With high street shopping affected by the COVID-19 restrictions and changes in habits and preferences, e-commerce can be expected to grow further.

In the 12 months prior to 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 prior to the survey. On the other hand, fewer than 50% had shopped online in Bulgaria (42%), Romania (45%) and Italy (49%; 2019 data).

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).

Clothes, shoes and accessories: most common online purchase:
In the 3 months prior to 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%).

Source datasets: EUstat, isoc_ec_ibuy and isoc_ec_ib20