Overall, Latvian consumers are satisfied with the purchases they make on Internet stores. 65.3% of respondents believe Internet stores are safe and reliable. 44.7% of respondents say they have never had any problems when shopping on the Internet, according to results of a survey performed by Gudriem.lv.
People who have had problems often mention two – products are not delivered or are received in a damaged state.
The most popular goods people purchase on the Internet include clothes, footwear and tickets for different events, according to data from the survey.
It should be said that most consumers (43.8%) purchase something on the Internet once a month. 31.1% do that once every six months, and only 3.9% have never bought anything from the Internet. 6.2% of respondents say they purchase something on the Internet once a week.
Based on data from the survey, most often residents purchase clothes and footwear (15.6%), products for children (11.3%), tickets for events (10%), cosmetics and perfume (8.4%), phones and other devices (7.7%), goods household and gardening goods (7.1%) and household electronics (6.3%).
As for the average amount residents spend on a single purchase, it usually comes to under EUR 30 – 31.9% of respondents mentioned this amount. 25.4% of respondents mentioned spending 30 to 50 euros on a single purchase. More than 100 euros is an amount mentioned by 10.4% of respondents.
As for the reasons why they decide to shop on the Internet as opposed to usual stores, respondents mentioned they prefer to shop on the Internet because of different discounts and sales (27.3%).
It should be added that 20.2% of respondents mentioned free delivery as one of the reason why they decided to shop on the Internet. 19.1% of respondents mentioned that sometimes the product they wanted was not available in regular stores. Visual design of the Internet store is important to 1.2% of respondents, as well as advertisements (4.9%) and recognition (5.8%). Factors that deter respondents from shopping in specific Internet stores include three: insufficient product description (15.3%), complaints from other people about specific stores (13.4%) and low popularity among other stores (12.9%).
According to data from the survey, buyers save on average 10-20% from shopping on the Internet when compared with regular stores, says Gudriem.lv sales department representative Kristine Gema.
“It is highly important for comparison portals to compile information about Latvian Internet stores and offer quick and convenient search options. Recently we have performed improvements to our Internet store comparison system. Processing speed has grown multiple times – now the search algorithm takes less than a second to present results. We have also improved the list of categories of goods. Our visual design has become more user-friendly as well,” Gema said.
Every fifth Internet buyer has experienced delays with deliveries of their ordered goods. The survey performed by Gudriem.lv shows that 65.3% of respondents consider shopping on the Internet safe. 44.4% of respondents have never had any problems with purchases on the Internet. 55.6% of respondents have experienced different kinds of problems. 22% of respondents mentioned missed deliveries, 12% mentioned receiving damaged goods, and 8.6% mentioned never receiving their goods in the end.
Respondents also mentioned other problems, including incomplete assembly of products (5.1%) and inability to contact the Internet store (4.1%). (BNN/Business World Magazine)