Some three fifths of EU citizens aged between 16 and 74 purchase goods and services online regularly, data from Eurostat has revealed.
According to the 2024 data, some 60.2% of people ordered ordered goods or services online during the three months prior to the survey, with all regions of Czechia, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden, as well as France (except its outermost territories) reporting a share higher than the EU average.
The share of online shoppers was lower than the EU average, however, in Bulgaria, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania and Slovenia, as well as Croatia and Latvia, the data showed.
Utrecht leads the way
On a regional basis, Utrecht, in the Netherlands, reported the highest share of online purchasing in the EU, with 91.5% of citizens buying goods or services online, followed by Flevoland (89.5%), also in the Netherlands, and Northern and Western Ireland (88.3%).
In 23 regions of the EU, at least 80% of the population shopped online regularly in 2024. Half of these regions were located in the Netherlands, with the remainder situated in Denmark, Ireland, Sweden and in the Czech capital region of Praha.
At the other end of the scale, some 21 EU regions reported online shopping shares below 40%, with six of these located in Romania, six in southern Italy, and five in Bulgaria. This total also included French outermost territories and one Portuguese autonomous region.
The southeastern Bulgarian region of Yugoiztochen boasted the lowest share of online shoppers, at 21.7%, followed by the French Caribbean region of Guadeloupe (24.2%) and the north-western Bulgarian region of Severozapaden (24.9%).
Increased share
Between 2019 and 2024, the proportion of people ordering goods or services online rose by 11.2 percentage points, with the biggest increase taking place in the Czech region of Severozápad, where the share rose from 33.8% to 73.9%.
In Northern and Western Ireland, the share rose by 38.7 points, while two other Czech regions, Moravskoslezsko and Střední Čechy, also recorded notable increases. Some 15 regions experienced declines over the same period, with the largest drops recorded in Bayern, Sachsen-Anhalt and Bremen. Read more here.
