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Remember back in the “good old days” when consumers didn’t trust buying online, wait was that you? Now we don’t even give exchanging money online a second thought and companies such as eBay, FreshBooks and Amazon are all part of our daily lives as we use their online services to make purchases. Nielsen has released some interesting from their Global Online Survey about the shopping habits of consumers from around the globe. The number of users online continues to grow year after year and consumers around the world have become increasingly comfortable with the experience where countries such as South Korea has a 99% of Internet users shop online, UK (97%), Germany (97%), Japan (97%) with the U.S. eighth, at 94 percent. Additionally, in South Korea, 79 percent of these Internet users have shopped in the past month, followed by the UK (76%) and Switzerland (67%) with the U.S. at 57 percent. In just two short years the worldwide population of online shoppers has increased by 40% to 875 billion.

“The Internet is no longer a niche technology — it is mass media and an utterly integral part of modern life. Almost no aspect of life remains untouched by online media. As our lives become more fractured and cluttered, it isn’t surprising that consumers turn to the unrivalled convenience of the Internet when it comes to researching and buying products,” said Jonathan Carson, President, International, Nielsen Online.

What did consumers purchase online in Q4 of 2007?

Globally, the most popular and purchased items over the Internet are:

• 41% Books
• 36% Clothing/Accessories/Shoes
• 24% Videos / DVDs / Games
• 24% Airline Tickets (24%)
• 23% Electronic Equipment

Other Online Shopping Stats:

• In the US the number of consumers purchasing books has increased 7% in two years
• More than 70 percent of Indians and more than 60 percent of Irish and UAE Internet users said they bought airline tickets/reservations on the Internet in the last three months, making travel the fourth most popular shopping category on the web
• One in four global Internet users bought DVDs/Videos online in the last three months, with UK users topping the list (44%), followed by South Africans (38%). The U.S. was fifth at 31 percent.
• 60% of globe online customers used credit cards for payment, 53% of which used Visa; 1 in 4 choose PayPay
• Recommendations from other consumers played a significant role in the decision-making process through the use of various Consumer Generated Media such as word of mouth and other forms of referrals

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