Additionally, only 15% of consumers who buy online pay with cards. according to a report issued by Awok.com, an online shopping store in Dubai that sells all kinds of consumer goods, from cameras, phones to kitchen appliances.
Among those who buy online, 85% would rather pay cash on delivery, while only 15% opt to use their credit or debit card. These online shoppers, majority of whom are presumably keeping a stash of cash in their wallets at all times, are mostly men (76%) and between 25 years and 34 years of age.
While online shopping is increasingly becoming popular, consumers in the UAE are quite not ready to fully embrace the culture of cashless payments due to security concerns. As to what they mostly shop for online, statistics showed that the most searched categories are mobile phones, tablets, watches, jewellery and perfumes.
Consumers electronics, preferred by 57% of the customers, top the list of popular items, followed by home and kitchen appliances (14%), apparel and accessories (10%), other categories (10%), health and beauty products (5%) and photography and cameras (4%). The majority of online customers (52%) use their smartphones to shop, while a significant number (44%) place orders through a desktop and a small number (4%) through a tablet.
Payments experts have long noted the slow uptake of cashless payments not just in the UAE but in many markets around the world. In 2009, 62.4% of total consumer payments were made in cash, compared to 4.9% for card transactions. Experts had earlier attributed the trend to the low levels of investment in the payment systems infrastructure and concerns over credit card debt and security.
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