While the most popular purchases by Irish consumers on the Internet continue to be the “old reliables” – airline tickets, holidays, concert tickets, CDs, DVDs and books – the most rapidly growing areas in online shopping are now clothes and electronic equipment.
According to the CSO’s recently released Information Society and Communications 2008 report (PDF, 978KB), the numbers ordering “clothes/sports goods” have more than trebled, from just under 68,000 people in the third quarter of 2005 to over 226,000 people in the first quarter of 2008.
The numbers buying electronic equipment online also trebled during the same period, from 53,000 people to 158,300.
And while the numbers buying shares or ordering financial services or insurance are not as big in absolute terms – and may have been affected since then by the economic downturn – they still grew by over 180% during the period.
| Table: Goods/services ordered online in previous 12 months | |||
| Types of goods / services |
Q3 2005 (‘000) | Q1 2008 (‘000) | Increase |
| Travel and holiday accommodation | 409.0 | 693.7 | 69.6% |
| Tickets for events | 203.2 | 385.6 | 89.8% |
| Films/music | 208.2 | 316.4 | 52.0% |
| Books, magazines, newspapers, e-learning material | 169.8 | 297.3 | 75.1% |
| Clothes/sports goods | 67.7 | 226.8 | 235.0% |
| Electronic equipment | 53.0 | 158.3 | 198.7% |
| Computer software | 77.6 | 161.7 | 108.4% |
| Household goods | 49.8 | 112.6 | 126.1% |
| Computer hardware | 35.2 | 84.8 | 140.9% |
| Share purchases/financial services/insurance | 18.9 | 53.2 | 181.4% |
| All persons who have ever purchased on the Internet in the previous 12 months |
739.2 | 1,163.2 | 57.4 |
Source: CSO – Information Society and Communications 2008, based on Quarterly National Household Survey data
Online banking
The same survey shows that the number of people who have done online banking in the past three months has increased rapidly too.
It jumped from 491,500 people in the third quarter of 2005 to 907,900 in the first quarter of 2008.
Health information
Another major growth area is the number of people looking for health related information online.
While it was not included in the 2005 survey, the CSO found almost a quarter of a million people (242,500) were seeking online information on health topics in the first quarter of 2006.
Two years later this had grown to 609,500 people.
