After 20 years since the first online sale was made it is print which is proving to be the most popular product with book sales making up over half of all online transactions.
The research was collected by Opinion Matters with a sample of 1,163 UK adults who shop online at the request of Shop Direct, the UK’s leading multi-brand digital retailer.
The research shows that 95% of consumers now shop online, with one in four doing so at least once a week. Books 64%, clothing and accessories 60%, music and entertainment 56%, electronics 54% and holidays and travel 50% top the list of the items bought online.
As online shopping has developed, the printing industry has been able to embrace the technology with web to print packages meeting the challenge of providing customers with what they need during without the need for physical contact with the people that shop with them.
Gareth Jones, group retail and strategy director at Shop Direct, said, ‘Twenty years ago, laptops and mobile phones were a rarity in most people’s homes, social media was in its infancy and high speed internet access didn’t exist. So when online shopping first came along, etailers had no real way of knowing what customers wanted or why certain products or areas of their websites performed better than others. As a result, the shopping experience was centred around the business rather than the customer.
‘Today’s online shopping experience starts and ends with the customer. We have a wealth of data at our fingertips and use it to understand what customers are looking for and why they shop and respond the way they do.’
