UK tops the spending per person league
New research by Website Builder Expert, the leading online resource for creating and launching your website, has revealed the countries with the biggest online spending habits as a proportion of their income – with China topping the list. The study compares data on e-commerce spend by capita (The Ecommerce Foundation) and average salary (The Davos 2017 Global Wage Calculator) to uncover the biggest online spenders in 19 of the largest countries across the world.
Of all the countries in the study, those in China spend the highest proportion of their salary shopping online. In fact, Chinese inhabitants splurge almost a fifth of their income (19.3 per cent) on ecommerce sites.
Accounting for more than a fifth of the world’s total internet users, China is home to the some of the most tech-savvy consumers on the planet which presents a huge opportunity for new or existing online retailers in Asia. The study found that the average chinese consumer spends $1,855 every year online, a figure that will no doubt continue to grow year on year.
| Country | % of salary spent online |
|---|---|
| China | 19.34% |
| Mexico | 17.31% |
| Indonesia | 12.66% |
| United Kingdom | 11.14% |
| India | 10.63% |
| Russia | 10.55% |
| United States | 7.63% |
| South Korea | 6.96% |
| France | 4.69% |
| Canada | 4.41% |
| Spain | 4.37% |
| Israel | 4.16% |
| Japan | 4.15% |
| Australia | 3.77% |
| Brazil | 3.66% |
| Italy | 3.29% |
| Germany | 3.24% |
| Saudi Arabia | 3.05% |
| South Africa | 1.04% |
Despite its mammoth population the US ranked in 7th place overall, spending a much smaller proportion of their salary shopping online (7.6 per cent), almost three times less than money spent in China, suggesting that many American consumers still prefer buying products in store as opposed to online.
In contrast to the US, Mexico ranked in 2nd place where residents spend over 17 per cent of their income online, splurging over $800 every year. At present only half of Mexico’s population uses the internet but its economy is growing at an impressive rate, meaning that online retail sales are likely to skyrocket in the immediate future.
It is Britons however who spend the largest total amount when shopping online. The research found that online spending sprees in the UK exceed $4,000 per person per annum and show no signs of slowing down. In fact, the most recent ONS report on retail sales in Great Britain states that online shopping in the UK is growing by more than 10 per cent year on year as consumers increasingly opt for purchasing goods online over traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
| Country | Ecommerce spend per person per year |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | $4,0.21 |
| United States | $3,428 |
| South Korea | $2,591 |
| France | $1,946 |
| China | $1,855 |
| Australia | $1,764 |
| Canada | $1,764 |
| Japan | $1,488 |
| Israel | $1,361 |
| Geremany | $1,283 |
| Spain | $1,209 |
| Italy | $1,040 |
| Mexico | $819 |
| Russia | $760 |
| Saudi Arabia | $625 |
| Brazil | $297 |
| Indonesia | $220 |
| India | $205 |
| South Africa | $171 |
The study revealed that South Africans spend the least online, which also equates to the lowest proportion of salary spent. Though India is only one place above South Africa in terms of ecommerce spend per capita, the percentage of salary spent online is surprisingly relatively high at more than 10.6 per cent, the 5th highest in the study.
Josh Frisby, who headed up this research for Website Builder Expert comments: “There is no doubt that the convenience of shopping online is being realised across the world. Our research highlights the huge opportunity for businesses thinking about expanding th
eir online presence overseas, especially in some countries in South America and Asia where only half of the population have access to the internet!”
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