What you need to know

Online shopping is a popular method of purchasing goods with 80% of NI and 69% of RoI consumers doing so at home in the last 12 months using a laptop or desktop computer.

Clothing, footwear and accessories are the most popular items being purchased online. Indeed, 43% of Irish consumers prefer to look at products in-store before buying them online, indicating that showrooming (viewing items in-store before purchasing online) is common in Ireland. Tourism-related services, such as flights and hotels, and physical media (eg books, CDs and DVDs) are also popular items bought online.

There is a strong preference among Irish consumers for having goods delivered to their homes. There is also interest in click-and-collect services, having items delivered by drone and to work and other places (eg gym lockers, car boots, transport hubs). This is being driven by the longer hours that Irish consumers are working and the generally busier lifestyles that they are leading. However, speed of delivery is not as important as cost savings and going forward the challenge for retailers is to reduce the cost of delivering goods ordered online to maintain their price advantage over high street retailers and thus provide consumers with the price value that they are looking for.

Issues covered in this report

This report examines the online and mobile retailing sector in Ireland, through exploring the issues that are fuelling or affecting its growth. Online and mobile retailing is concerned with consumers ordering and paying for goods and services through online channels, including desktop and laptop computers, and internet-connected mobile devices including smartphones and tablets. Online and mobile retail includes physical items bought online, for example clothes, and the purchase of intangible products such as holidays.

This report will examine two main types of retailer:

  • Pure-play retailers are those that trade exclusively online, for example amazon.com and asos.com.

  • Multichannel retailers are those that trade through online channels as well as physical stores. Examples include supermarkets such as Tesco.

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