PayPal is making inroads
Unlike many other countries in Western Europe, Norway’s GDP has continued to grow robustly despite the regional economic crisis. But growing fortunes have not propelled Norway to the level of ecommerce penetration of many of its Western European counterparts, including the UK, Germany and France, though research shows it is beginning to catch up.
March data from Nets, a Nordic payments provider, found that Norway was leading Scandinavia in online buyer penetration in the region, at 59% of internet users. Sweden, with a higher GDP and more than double the digital ad market of Norway (and nearly double the population), was six percentage points behind its neighbor to the west in terms of online buyer penetration.
For those who’ve joined the ecommerce marketplace in Norway, they are not hesitating to spend large sums of money. Norway’s spending per buyer was way ahead of the other Nordic countries, at €218 ($303) in February. That was just less than double the €120 ($167) spent by the average buyer in Denmark, the country with the next highest average spending. Driving up average spending in Norway was the heavy booking of travel via the internet, the No. 1 purchase category.
Looking at who is drawn to buy goods online in the country, Nets found they are heavy users of cards to make purchases, with more than three out of five ecommerce buyers reporting that they used this payment method. In Sweden, by comparison, only 36% of online buyers relied on credit cards, and even fewer used credit cards in Finland.
PayPal is also gaining some traction in Norway, with 8% of online buyers saying they used the online payment processor. That’s a higher usage of PayPal than in the other Scandinavian countries studied.
Online buyers in Norway were also more likely to be male and skewed young. Seventy-one percent of those between ages 18 to 45 reported making an online purchase, compared to 56% of those between the ages of 46 to 59, and only 40% of those over 60.
Corporate subscribers have access to all eMarketer analyst reports, articles, data and more. Join the over 750 companies already benefiting from eMarketer’s approach. Learn more.
Check out today’s other articles, “Time Spent With Mobile Apps Rivals TV” and “For Email Marketers, List Segmentation Is a Top Priority.”