Online shopping is seeing a boom in the European Union because of changes in consumers' habits and preferences, and the coronavirus pandemic is likely to speed up this trend, according to a survey conducted by the EU's statistics bureau Eurostat.

In the 12-month period ended March 2020, 89% of EU citizens aged 16 to 74 had used the internet, 72% of whom had bought or ordered goods or services for private use, the survey showed.

Online shopping increased by 4 percentage points (pp) compared with 2019 (68% of internet users) and by 10 pp compared with 2015 (62%).

More than 8 in 10 internet users in the Netherlands (91%), Denmark (90%), Germany (87%), Sweden (86%) and Ireland (81%) had bought or ordered goods or services over the internet in the 12 months prior to the survey. On the other hand, fewer than 50% had shopped online in Bulgaria (42%), Romania (45%) and Italy (49%; 2019 data).

Over the last five years, the largest increases in online shopping among internet users were recorded in Romania (+27 pp), Czechia and Croatia (both +25 pp) as well as Hungary (+23 pp).

In Croatia, 69% of people used the internet for shopping in the reporting period, compared with 44% in 2015.

In the three months prior to the survey, the most common online purchases were clothes (including sport clothing), shoes or accessories (ordered by 64% of online shoppers).

They were followed by films or series as a streaming service or downloads (32%), deliveries from restaurants, fast-food chains and catering services (29%), furniture, home accessories or gardening products (28%), cosmetics, beauty or wellness products (27%), printed books, magazines or newspapers (27%), computers, tablets, mobile phones or their accessories (26%) and music as a streaming service or downloads (26%).