The Institute of Grocery Distribution has published research that forecasts that UK consumers will spend £7.2 billion on food and grocery shopping online by 2014 - nearly double the figure for 2009. Last year 13% of UK adults shopped online, an increase of 63% on 2006.
The key findings of Online Shopping 2009 are:
- 30% of online grocery shoppers purchase less often than once a month;
- -24% intend to try an alternative online supermarket in the next three months and 25% would like to but are put off by the effort involved;
- 34% expect to shop in a variety of outlets, including online, in the next five to 10 years (compared to 27% in 2007);
- A further 34% expect to only shop in a supermarket for everything and 7% expect to shop just online for food and groceries.
The UK government’s Office for National Statistics states that 64% of UK residents have shopped online at some point, but only 13% have bought food or groceries in the last year. M ore than six in 10 (61%) current and potential online shoppers also said that removing delivery charges would be a key prompt for increasing grocery shopping online.
idg.com
