Ireland: 33% of ecommerce revenues are from across borders

Consumer spend online was up 53% compared to 2014, according to a report issed by the market research agency Wolfgang Digital. This increase in spend is the result of a 26% increase in website traffic combined with and average spend per visit increasing by 21%, evigo.com reports.

Retail enjoyed a 59% rise in online spend year on year from a 23% increase in traffic. Average spend per visit increased by 30%. The Central Statistics Office reports retail, excluding motor sales, growing at 0.8% in January and February, 2015 combined. This puts the online retail economy growing a significant 74 times faster than retail at large.

The travel industry benefited from a 29% lift in online revenue which was linked to a 36% increase in traffic. The longer purchase cycle in travel explains the traffic lift being higher than the revenue lift at this point. Desktop traffic has grown in real terms but its traffic share has dropped from 58% to 48%. By contrast, tablet has stayed steady in terms of traffic share at 18% while mobile has surged from 24% of traffic to 34% of traffic. The figures suggest that most of the people who will own a tablet, now have one. Mobile usage continues to boost, eating into desktop’s share.

Recently, Google updated its ranking algorithm to give preference to mobile optimised websites in its rankings for mobile searches. The move, which was announced in advance, has been nicknamed “Mobilegeddon” and has caused a flurry of activity globally as businesses seek to optimise their websites for mobile devices in order to avoid losing valuable mobile traffic.

Wolfgang Digital measured the growth in online shopping by comparing ecommerce data from three quarters: Q1 2015 to Q1 in 2014, and Q1 2015 to Q4 2015. The ecommerce websites that took part in the study are in the retail and travel verticals, with a combined revenue in excess of EUR 80 million in 2013. This represents 2% of the EUR 4 billion ecommerce market in Ireland.

Check out our Cross-border Ecommerce Research section here for more info on country-specific ecommerce facts and figures, preferred payment methods, risk and fraud, as well as ecommerce legislation and regulation for mature and emerging markets.