During this year’s 1st trimester, Belgian consumers made more than 20 million purchases online, meaning a turnover of more than 2.1 billion euros. These figures come from the first BeCommerce Market Monitor, a study performed by GfK for BeCommerce. The study was backed by PostNL, Google and Worldline. Such high figures for the first trimester means e-commerce in Belgium should turnover more than 7 billion euros in 2015, according to BeCommerce. It revealed 6.8 million Belgians bought at least one product or service online during the first three months of the year. “That means 74% of the Belgian population aged over 15 is an online buyer, spending on average 307 euros”, says the online traders association.
In detail, 73% of Flemish people made at least one online purchase during the period studied, and they spent an average of 331 euros. In Wallonia and Brussels, 76% of consumers bought online, spending on average 275 euros. “The Belgian consumer is clearly very busy buying online, but they are careful when it comes to online purchases via mobile devices”, says Inge Zeeuws, Research Director at GfK. More than half of online purchases were done through a laptop, but only 7% were done on a tablet, and 3% on a smartphone.
71% of the 20 million online purchases were products, and 29% were services. Airplane tickets and accommodation are the most popular buys. They are more popular than event and attraction tickets, and travel subscriptions. On the other hand, supermarket purchases are the least popular online buys, accounting for less than 1%.
During the first trimester, 47 million euros were paid in delivery costs, accounting for 2% of online purchases.
(Source: Belga)
