The majority of Maltese who buy online do so from foreign sites with Maltese sites being mainly used for mobile top-ups, Denise Borda, a Malta Communications Authority official, said yesterday.
Ms Borda was speaking on the results of an e-commerce study, commissioned to Ernst & Young and aimed at gaining an insight into the level of e-commerce usage across the Maltese islands and assess its potential for growth.
She said that 79 per cent of people interviewed claimed to buy only from foreign sites, 19 per cent said they bought from both foreign and local sites and two per cent said they bought from just local sites.
The survey, the fourth of its kind, was carried out between March 25 and April 9.
Ms Borda said that more than half of the Maltese who used the internet bought online with the figure rising from 35 per cent in September 2006 to 58 per cent in April.
Fifty-six per cent opted to buy online, claiming the prices were better, 36 per cent said it was more convenient for them to do so and 27 per cent pointed out they bought products that were not available locally.
The most popular method of payment for online purchases remained credit cards but Paypal use was steadily increasing.
The most popular products bought online were IT and electronic goods (38 per cent), closely followed by books (34 per cent) and clothing (27 per cent).
Ms Borda said that online shoppers were buying and spending more. While in September last year, 10 per cent of participants had made more than 10 purchases over the previous six months, the figure went up to 15 per cent in April.
And while in September last year 52 per cent had spent more than €120, 56 per cent spent more than this amount in April. Only 26 per cent of online shoppers claimed to have ever experienced at least one problem when buying online.
Online shoppers were mainly concerned with security and non delivery. However, 37 per cent of online shoppers had no concerns or were willing to take the risk.
Communications Minister Austin Gatt said that while, according to the Eurobarometer, the EU average of people buying online from different states stood at seven per cent, Malta, at 23 per cent, was only second to Luxembourg (38 per cent).
He pointed out that an incentive the government launched in 2006, whereby traders who went online were given tax credits of up to €12,000, was only taken up by 54 traders. The scheme, he said, was still available.
The minister said that although Maltese businessmen were somewhat reluctant to go online, they still bought a lot of their supplies through the net.
He hoped all this would change with the creation of an e-mall. The government had issued a call for offers for this to be developed and operated. An e-mall is an electronic infrastructure where several enterprises would sell online from one site using the same infrastructure. Such a mall would offer businessmen the opportunity to conduct business online without the need to have their own electronic set-up.