Finns fond of shopping online, Verkkokauppa, Zalando most in vogue

About 57 per cent of Finns buy online on a monthly basis while 29 per cent make online purchases every week, found a survey commissioned by the national postal and logistic services operator Posti.

Nearly 30 per cent Finns have increased the volume of online shopping due to COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of online shoppers estimate that they will go for more online shopping in the future, found Kantar TNS’s 2020 online shopping survey, the report of which includes a comprehensive overview of the current state of online shopping in Finland.

Meanwhile, for the second year running, consumers have selected Finnish Verkkokauppa.com and German Zalando as the best online stores. The third spot was claimed by Amazon, with Adlibris and CDON.COM completing the top 5.

Posti Parcel and eCommerce Vice-President Tommi Kässi said the exceptional circumstances of last spring affected the way Finns buy online in many ways.

“There has been a sharp increase in the online shopping activity of Finns, partly due to COVID-19. Finnish online stores have done better than last year, with 75% of online shoppers feeling it important to buy Finnish products,” said Kässi.

Food, groceries, and takeout meals were also bought online “More than before. Considering the big picture, online food sales are still clearly below the central European level but the percentage of online shopping in the food category marks a clear increase from that of last year here, too,” added Kässi.

The ease of buying is clearly a contributing factor to the increase of online shopping. When it comes to the delivery of online purchases, factors increasing online shopping include free delivery (65%), parcel tracking and control (37%), as well as predictive notices of delivery (35%).

In total, 20% of Finns aged 18 to 79 are forerunners of online shopping. The forerunners are eagerly waiting for the new opportunities provided by online shopping. They estimate doing more than 60% of their shopping online by 2025. About 38% of the basic users find shopping online easy. This group estimates doing 30% of their shopping online by 2025. As occasional users are still testing out the system, the skeptics and experimenters (41%) estimate that they will buy three times the current amount (9%) by 2025.

The most popular products ordered online include clothes, shoes, accessories (27%), as well as home electronics, computers, phones, devices, and equipment (17%).

“During the first COVID-19 wave, many brands offered free deliveries for their products. As a result, many online stores reached incredible sales figures. This trade practice, which is common around the world, will also become more popular in Finland,” said Posti International eCommerce Vice-President Sami Finne.

The data was collected through the Kantar TNS Forum online panel in July 2020. The target group of the study consisted of Finnish Internet users between the ages of 18 and 79. The total number of respondents in Finland was 2,380. The survey was also partially conducted in the Baltic countries: 526 respondents in Estonia, 566 in Latvia and 522 in Lithuania.