According to annual survey of the Electronic Commerce Laboratory (ELTRUN) of the Athens University of Economics and Business, the turnover of B2C (business to consumer) electronic shopping in Greece reached 2.9 billion euros in 2012 compared to 1.8 billion euros last year (61% increase). Specifically, this year a total of 1.9 million Greeks (from 1.5 million in 2011) bought products or services online, while on average consumers made 20 online purchases with a total value of 1,600 euros (from 15 purchases with a total value 1,200 euros in 2011). Taking into account the evolution of the turnover of the electronic markets of the five years 2008-2012, then it shows a spectacular increase of the order of 480%.
In terms of products and services purchased online, the largest increase in sales occurred in the travel services industry, which came in first from third place. There was a significant increase in clothing and footwear items (from tenth to fifth place) due to the preferences of Greek consumers for buying branded (but at the same time) cheap products that are already offered by several online stores in the form of Shopping Clubs now in this category. Accordingly, 81% of online consumers continue to visit discount coupon websites, while 61% of them make purchases from the specific sites. The appearance for the first time of a share in the electronic markets of services related to telecommunications, insurance, rental and sale, finance and legal is also noteworthy.
The great importance of the Internet for shopping is also recorded by the trend that online consumers for 50% of their purchases made in 2012 in physical stores had searched, compared products, and made market research on the Internet before making the purchase. It would be interesting if in the future ELTRUN could also enrich its research with the percentage of smart mobile device owners who frequently use their devices inside a store to retrieve product price information and then order it (outside the store) via the internet, i.e. to carry outShowrooming.
Regarding the use of pomnichannel distribution network of online stores, the pick-up rate of products ordered by consumers online is 28%.