How much time do we spend on e-commerce?

Visiting online shops is one of the favourite activities of European users. A recent study by comScore (E-commerce: 10 Trends – EU5) reveals that 84% of users in five of the main European Union countries (Germany, UK, France, Spain and Italy) accessed e-commerce sites during the last quarter of last year.

This percentage is 18 points higher than the world average of 66%. North America presents almost identical figures to those of the five European countries (83%), while Latin America is 65% and the Asia-Pacific region is 64%.

The percentages of e-commerce penetration vary slightly among the five European countries studied, as can be seen in the following graph:

However, there are large differences in the time spent by users in the five countries regarding online shopping.

Users in the UK and Germany devote an average of around five hours a month to exploring e-commerce sites. Specifically, the British add up to 322 minutes on average (5 hours and 22 minutes), while the Germans reach 299 minutes (4 hours and 59 minutes).

French users spend an average of 185 minutes each month (3 hours and 5 minutes) in e-commerce, while in the case of Spanish users the average is slightly lower: 173 minutes (2 hours and 53 minutes). Italy is the country of the five countries with the least time spent on e-commerce: an average of 157 minutes (2 hours and 37 minutes) per user.

The comScore study is based on cross-platform data (computers and mobile devices) from five European countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

According to this report, consumers in the UK and Spain are more likely to use mobile devices to access e-commerce sites, while French and German consumers prefer computers for online shopping.

Clothing is the product that leads the visits to online shops in all five countries studied, ahead of electronics and interior decoration. If we analyze the specific case of Spain, the ranking is dominated by electronics, with clothing in second position and food in third place.

Amazon is the e-shop with the largest number of visitors in the five countries studied, with the corresponding local edition of the store in each country. The second place presents greater variation. Thus, while eBay is second in Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, in Spain the second position is for Elcorteingles.es, while in France that position is for the store Cdiscount.com.