Analytics, Banks, Direct Speech, Estonia, Financial Services, Internet, Retail

Estonian residents made an average of 90,000 online purchases valued at a total of 3.3 million euros every day in the first quarter of 2019. The purchases were distributed more or less equally between Estonian and foreign online shops. Bank links are used most often to buy items from Estonian online shops – for some 33,000 purchases a day. Around every fourth purchase in Estonia is paid for using a bank card.

Bank data also show that Estonian residents like gambling: they use a bank link to buy a lottery ticket or otherwise gamble 17,000 times a day.

Although the rise of online shopping is impressive statistically, a comparison of European countries shows that Estonian online shopping has room to grow. According to a survey[1] commissioned by the international parcel delivery service DPD Group, 8.2% of physical items are bought from online shops in Estonia. The most active online shoppers in Europe reside in Germany and the United Kingdom, where online shopping makes up 13.4% and 13.1% of all purchases. The European average for this share is 11.5% of all purchases. The survey also revealed that Estonian residents mainly ordered beauty and health products online, followed by technology and electronics, and then clothes. Estonian residents tend to order from China, the United Kingdom and Germany most often.

According to Statistics Estonia, the sales revenue of Estonian retail companies has seen a 5% annual increase on average over the past five years. At the same time, the turnover of online shops has grown much more, an average of 23% annually over the past five years.