Chinese the most prolific online consumers

(Peter Kirillov/shutterstock.com)

More Chinese consumers buy goods online than their European counterparts; the Chinese were also more likely to use internet retail sites to buy clothes.

US consumers are spending more online: internet retail spending reached over €24 billion ($32 billion) in the second quarter of 2010, a 9 percent increase from the same period last year. The most popular items were consumer electronics, computer software (excluding PC games), computers/PDAs, books and magazines according to a August 10 report by comScore.inc, a leading internet measuring company.

However Chinese consumers are also tapping into the world of internet commerce: retail sales have increased at an average rate of 117 percent per year for the last three years, and are expected to reach a market value of over €50 billion ($66 billion) by the end of 2010. Like American consumers, Chinese shoppers purchased books, magazines and electronic products online, however, according to research group Nielsen, Chinese consumers were the keenest to use the internet to purchase clothes, with 40 percent intending to do so over the next 6 months.

Chinese and Koreans are amongst the most prolific online shoppers in the world, with 95 percent of people with internet access in both countries planning to make an online purchase within 6 months, whereas an average of only 75 percent of Europeans plan to do the same.

Popular internet retail sites in China include Amazon subsiduary Joyo.com, Taobao.com and dangdang.com.

According to the Nielsen survey of 27,000 internet users in 55 markets throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas, the ten most popular internet retail items, by percentage of intended buyers were:

1. Books 44%

2. Clothing /accessories /shoes 36%

3. Airline tickets /reservations 32%

4. Electronic equipment 27%

5. Tours /Hotel reservations 26%

6. Cosmetics /nutrition supplies 22%

7. Event tickets 20%

8. Computer hardware 19%

9. Videos /games /DVDs 18%

10. Groceries 18%