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Footwear amongst most popular items for cross-border online shopping

Dec 26, 2018 World

A study conducted by Ipsos for PayPal revealed that 68% of the online shoppers surveyed purchased items of clothing, apparel, footwear or accessories from websites in other countries

PayPal has released the main results of its 2018 Cross Border Consumer Research, based on research carried out earlier in the year and a survey done to roughly 34 000 consumers in 31 markets across the world. The study was conducted by Ipsos, a market research and consulting firm based in France.

According to the study, consumers in the Middle East are the most likely to shop cross-border, with Asia Pacific and North America being the regions where online shopping is mainly done in domestic websites (52%). By country, shopping across borders is most prevalent in Ireland, Austria and Israel. Online shoppers from Germany (68%), the US (66%) and the UK (62%) show a particular preference for shopping only in domestic websites.

In Japan 94% of the respondents have said they only shop domestically when buying items online.

According to PayPal, the majority of cross-border purchases are still made on a computer, with the APAC* shoppers being more likely than most to make cross-border purchases on alternative devices.

Main categories of items purchased

Clothing, apparel, footwear or accessories is the most popular category for cross-border purchases, with68% of the online shoppers responding that in the past 12 months they have purchased items from this category from websites in other countries. This category was followed by consumer electronics (53%) and toys (53%)

Main drivers of cross-border shopping

72% of the respondents have said they shop from other countries if the prices are more attractive. Access to items not available in their home countries (49%) and discovering new and interesting products (34%) are the other main drivers for cross-border online shopping.

* Asia Pacific

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