In 2021, the share of people living in Portugal who shopped online, in the 3 months prior to the survey, reached 40%, 5 percentage points (p.p.) more than the previous year. If the previous twelve months are considered, 52% carried out this type of transaction (+7 p.p. than in 2020), breaking the 50% barrier. This is the highest annual growth since this type of information has been collected, a fact that may be associated with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Around 27% of respondents had never purchased online and around 10% made online sales.
Portugal was the 24th country in the European Union (EU27) in terms of the proportion of individuals who have made purchases online and the 21st country for online sales.
Clothing/footwear (69%) and home-delivered meals (46%) were the most popular physical products ordered online and the ones that grew the most compared to the previous year (+9 and +8 p.p. respectively), followed by cosmetics, beauty and well-being products (31%) and computers, tablets, mobile phones, additional computer equipment or accessories (30%), in this last case the product that decreased the most compared to the previous year (-7 p.p.).
Portugal ranked 4th in the EU27 when it came to the online purchase of computers, tablets, mobile phones, additional computer equipment or accessories, and 6th in the online purchase of home-delivered meals (+15 p.p. above the average), cosmetics, beauty or well-being products and sports equipment.
Among digital products, films, series and sports programmes for online download or subscription stood out as those most purchased over the Internet (35% of individuals who purchased online). Portugal ranked 9th in the EU27 in the purchase of this type of digital products.
With regard to services contracted through the Internet, it is worth highlighting the following: accommodation (28%, up 7 p.p. on the previous year), transport (22%) and the subscription or renewal of Internet, telephone or mobile phone connection services (19%), with Portugal in 5th, 8th and 6th place, respectively, in the EU27 ranking for the purchase of these services.
People with high levels of education, higher income, employed or students, showed a greater likelihood of making online purchases and sales. This profile is similar to the EU27 average and has remained the same as the previous year.
In 2020, around 16% of Portuguese companies with 10 or more people employed received orders through electronic networks (-3 p.p. than the EU27 average and +4 p.p. than the previous year). These orders represented 17% of the turnover (-3 p.p. than the previous year).
Although most companies receive orders through their website/app, around 6% of the companies analysed received them through e-commerce portals or digital platforms (via apps) used by various companies, such as Booking, hotels.com, eBay, Amazon, Amazon Business, Alibaba, Rakuten, Showroomprive, TimoCom, etc.
It should be noted that 93% of respondents did not mention any difficulty in placing an online order and that the most frequently mentioned problems regarding online purchases were the delivery time of orders (3%) and the delivery of damaged or wrong goods or services (3%).
The main barrier to using e-commerce was preference for face-to-face contact, force of habit or loyalty to regular customers, followed by no need to buy online and concerns about security of payments.
Although 71% of companies expressed no difficulties associated with sales to customers in other EU countries (up 24 p.p. on the 2019 survey), the main problem mentioned by the rest was the high costs of delivery and return of products (20%).
Consult the statistical report:
- O comércio eletrónico em Portugal e na União Europeia em 2021 - segmento residencial e empresarial https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1715245
