A recent study realized by Akamai during Christmas period revealed that two-thirds of European consumers counted on doing their Christmas shopping on Internet. Among them, a majority being elderly people.
Europeans enjoy online shopping
Akamai Technologies announced the findings of its “European Consumer Holiday Shopping Plans” survey. The research, conducted with consumers in the Uk, Sweden, France, Italy and Spain revealed that two-thirds of participants intended to do their Christmas shopping online, among them many elderly people. Moreover, 53 % of the respondents declared using mobile devices for their e-shopping.
87% of respondents planned to realize previous online research of the products, but eventually purchase them on the physical store.
61 % use mobile devices in order to compare prices, see notification and reviews or even scan coupon codes, while in store.
Users aged between 65 and 74 years old generally use Internet for:
- Sending or receaving e-mails (86%)
- Finding information about products or services (79%)
- Reading news (60%)
- Purchase goods (42%)
Source: Eurostat
The use of the Internet by elderly people was one of the criteria Eurostat was interested in. European seniors still do not use the Internet as much as the rest of the population; however, Eurostat noted that northern European countries accounted for the largest number of “Silver Surfers”.
Enrique Duvos, Director, Product Marketing & Enablement EMEA at Akamai Technologies declared on this occasion: “Today’s connected consumers are going online more frequently and demand a continuous shopping experience, transitioning with ease from one device to another depending on whether they are at home, in-store, or on-the go, and which shopping task they are undertaking at that moment in time”
“To meet today’s customers’ expectations, alongside being prepared to scale for peak traffic, these findings confirm that retailers need to ensure digital experiences are optimized for a wide variety of user endpoints, while providing improvements in key areas of the mobile shopping process, such as easier navigation and viewing, faster load times, and simpler checkout,” he continued.
Survey Methodology
The European Consumer Holiday Shopping Plans survey was conducted online with 3,621 consumers, with interviews being conducted with at least 500 respondents in the following countries: UK (525); the Netherlands (500); Germany (509); Sweden (543); Italy (518); Spain (514); and France (512). The sample was collected online in December 2015. The gender of respondents was 43% female; 56% male. The age groups sampled were: 18-24; 25-34; 45-54; 55-64; and 65+.
Published by the Editorial Staff on