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Almost a quarter of European shoppers have used the internet to buy books, magazines and e-learning material in the past year. This is the conclusion of a Eurostat annual survey on information and communication technologies’ use in households and by individual consumers.
Buying books, magazines or e-learning material online was most common in Luxembourg—with 47% of those surveyed declaring to have bought the products—and Germany, where 41% of those surveyed said they had bought the products online in 2012.
Just over a third of those polled in Sweden (38%) and the UK (36%) bought books online last year, said the Statistical Office of the European Communities (EU) statistical agency.
This shows an increase in online book and magazine shopping compared to figures of five years ago (2008), when 21% of the Swedes and 27% of UK citizens participating in the survey made such purchases.
Online shoppers in newer EU member states are lagging behind: only 4% of survey participants from Romania, Latvia and Bulgaria bought books online in 2012, the lowest figures in the EU.
The survey covered households with at least one person aged 16–74, and individuals within this age range. Ordering clothes, sporting goods and booking travel and holiday accommodation were the most common purchases, with one third of participants claiming to have bought such services online in 2012.