Moreover, nearly 63% of online consumers shopped online from December 2013 thru November 2014, according to a recent report issued by PayPal. Over a third of online adults (36%) anticipated that they will begin to or increase their online cross-border shopping in the next 12 months.
49% of the customers shopping online, bought both domestically and cross-border, according to a survey issued by the market research agency IPSOS. The top three countries that UAE online shoppers opt to buy from are revealed as the US (30%), UK (18%) and India (18%). Almost a third (31%) of all online shoppers said that they have spent 11-50% of their purchases on cross-border; with 12 per cent said that 51-100% of their shopping were cross-border.
As cross-border is concerned, 43% of UAE bought travel and transportation products from foreign websites, followed by clothing/apparel, footwear and accessories (40%), consumer electronics (35%), jewellery/watches (33%), event tickets (30%), cosmetics/beauty products (24%), digital or downloadable entertainment/education (22%), physical entertainment/education products (18%), household appliances, household goods/furniture (16%t) and toys and hobbies (15%).
The top motivating factors to shop cross-border are: free shipping (selected by 49%), safe ways to pay (49%) and items, which are not available locally (39%), while they concerned that delivery/shipping costs (49%), identify theft/fraud (47%) and difficulty that the item would not be as described (42%).
When asked the reasons for preferring cross-border online payment method, more than half (53%) of shoppers (who have used more than one payment method) cited safety as a motivator, with other top motivators including purchase protection (51%), ‘more convenient way to pay (40%) and faster checkout (24%).
When it comes to the motivation of UAE online shoppers to use the internet to search for, choose and order products, 40% said the ‘convenience factor - saving time and effort - are main reasons for using the internet, with 27% admitted they search for products online mainly to save money.
The survey was conducted on more than 17,500 consumers.
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