According to research estimates, it’s found that shopping online over the last two years has increased by almost 40%. That’s a big rise. And around 85% of entire global population shops online. It looks to a big shift from the traditional method.

It’s being predicted more than half of online users could have at least made one online purchase from their favorite store.

Researchers have found that maximum number of online purchase was done by South Koreans. The online shopping percentage for South Koreans stands at 99%.

Following them are Japan, Germany and Great Britian at 97%. U.S. occupies third position at 94%. It’s believed that around 79% of South Koreans shopped online in the last one month. In similar lines UK was at 76%, Switzerland 67% and U.S. 57%

Which was the most popular item purchased?

Books turns out to be the most purchased product online. Around 41 per cent of books were purchased in the last three months.

Shopping which accounted for 36 per cent of transactions were shoes, clothing and accessories. Video games, DVDs, games stood at 25 per cent.

Airline tickets accounted for 24 percent. Electronic equipment had shopping transactions of 23 per cent. Emerging countries from Asia like China, and developing countries like Vietnam, Brazil and Egypt were biggest shoppers of books online.

Over the past two years, number of books purchased online jumped up by 7 per cent. The biggest jump was seen for items like shoes, clothing and accessories. It jumped from 20 per cent to 36 per cent.

Purchase of  Dvds, videos and airline tickets didn’t see much rise. It only moved from 2 per cent to 3 per cent in the last two years. Not a big jump considering books and clothing.

In the last three months; more than 70 percent of airline tickets were bought online. Indians were the prime shoppers. And Irish and UAE users accounted for more than 60 per cent in the same category. This made travel the fourth popular category on the internet.

Preferred Mode of Payment

Credit card was used as the most preferred mode of payment. Around 60 per cent of online shoppers made use of credit cards to make their purchase.

In the credit card category, Visa cards were mostly used with their percentage usage standing at 53 per cent. Highest users of credit card were Turkish shoppers. Following them at 85 per cent Irish. Indians and UAE users were 80 percent.

Pay pal was used by 1 out of 4 online users.  60 per cent of UK users used debit cards followed by U.S. which was 40 per cent.

Analyst also found that around 60 per cent preferred to purchase online from the same site. People using search engines were only one third, while one in four used personal suggestions.