CYPRUS: Cypriots near bottom of the European league for online shopping

When it comes to online shopping Cyprus is near the end of the queue with only 39% of Cypriots making a virtual purchase, according to a Eurostat survey.

According to Eurostat, there is an increase in the number of online shoppers in the EU as 68% of people had used the internet to purchase at least one item in 2017 compared with 50% in 2007.

But Cyprus consumers don’t appear to be picking up on the trend of buying from online shopping platforms or shops, as the country comes in third from the bottom in the EU.

Only 39% of Cypriots said they had bought at least one item on line, while only Romania (23%) and Bulgaria (27%) had a lower percentage.

Cypriots online shoppers use the internet the most to shop for clothes and sporting goods, as 54% of the participants said that they shopped at least one such item online in the previous year.

The least popular products are food and groceries with 7%, as there appears not to be a culture nor the infrastructure for such purchases.

Cyprus was bottom of the EU list when it came to shop online for household goods (14%) and tickets for events (12%) and it was only pipped by Bulgaria (8%) for books and magazines with 11%.

The highest proportion of internet users who shopped online during the previous year were in the United Kingdom (86%), Sweden (84 %), Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands (all 82%).

Eurostat published the online shopping data on the occasion of Cyber Monday.

Cyber Monday is the online equivalent of Black Friday with shopping platforms having online sales.

It is always the Monday after Thanksgiving in the United States and is considered to be one of the biggest shopping days of the year.

Cyber Monday was created in 2005 by marketing companies to encourage people to shop online.