The percentage of people in Portugal who made purchases, in the three months before the survey carried out in 2021, reached 40%, more than 5% than residents in 2020, online administration to Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações (Anacom), in the report “Commercenacom in Portugal and the European Union”.
“If we consider the previous 12 months, 52% carried out this type of transaction (7% more than in 2020), surpassing the 50% barrier”, which represents the “highest annual growth since this type of information is collected, the fact that may be associated with the effects of the Covid pandemic”, says the document.
The report also shows that, however, more than a quarter (27%) of those surveyed have never shopped online, and around 10% made sales on the Internet.
“Portugal was the 24th country in the European Union (EU27) in terms of the percentage of individuals who made online purchases and the 21st country in online sales”, adds Anacom.
“Clothing/footwear (69%) and home-delivered meals (46%) were the physical products most ordered via the Internet and the ones that grew the most compared to the previous year (9% more and 8% more, respectively), following cosmetics, beauty and well-being products (31%) and computers, tablets, mobile phones, complimentary computer equipment or accessories (30%), in the latter case the one that fell the most compared to the previous year (7% less) “, indicates the report.
Individuals with higher education levels, higher incomes, employees or students, “showed a greater propensity to make purchases and sales via the Internet”.
About 6% of the companies analyzed received “orders” through e-commerce portals or digital platforms (via apps) used by various companies, such as Booking, hotels.com, eBay, Amazon, Amazon Business, Alibaba, Rakuten, Showroomprive, TimoCom”, among others.
Among the main obstacles to the use of e-commerce are “the preference for personal contact, the force of habit or loyalty to regular customers”, followed by “no need to buy online”, as well as “concerns about the security of payments “, as well as the “high costs of delivering and returning products”, the report concludes.
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