Maltese consumers' trust in public authorities and NGOs responsible for protecting their rights has gone down drastically, according to an EU study published yesterday.
The percentage of consumers who felt adequately protected by existing measures when making purchases slid by 10 percentage points in just a year to 42.7 per cent, according to the results of the Consumer Market Scoreboard in 2009 published by the European Commission.
When it came to public authorities, which at the end of the day are the most responsible entity in the protection of consumers' rights, trust slid slightly to 61.7 per cent in 2009 from 65 per cent in 2008.
However, retailers should be the most worried since the Maltese tend to trust shop owners to respect their rights much less than they do the authorities, with the trust level falling 13 percentage points in just one year, to 45.4 per cent.
When compared to the EU average, Maltese consumers still trust authorities more (EU average is 58.4 per cent) but they are counting on retailers much less (EU average 58.1 per cent).
"Although trust has been hit by the financial crisis across all member states, the Maltese results show that, although trust is down across the board, expectations in retailers is on a free fall," a European Commission official told The Times yesterday.
"If consumers continue to believe they won't get a good deal from retailers when making their purchases, they might start opting to shop elsewhere and that is definitely not healthy for Malta's business," the official said.
According to the scoreboard, Malta is already one of the most advanced countries when it comes to using the internet to do shopping.
The study shows that in 2009, the Maltese were among the Europeans most likely to purchase from abroad, surpassed only by Luxembourg.
In 2009, 27 per cent of Maltese consumers said they shopped online to buy products from other member states, an increase from just 17 per cent in 2008. The EU average is much lower and in 2009 stood at eight per cent.
"Malta, together with Cyprus and Luxembourg has the highest level of online consumers in the EU. This may be a result of their small markets as it is easier to find products online which are not sold in their country," the study says.
However, according to the Commission, this may also be a result of loss of confidence in retailers.
The study also looks at what consumers can afford. The Maltese stood at 87 per cent of the EU average, meaning that for every €100 at the disposal of an average EU citizen, a Maltese citizen will have €87.
The richest consumers in the EU in 2009 were the Luxembourgers with an affordability of 188 per cent, while the poorest were the Romanians with just 22 per cent of the EU average.
The study took into account relative levels of income and cost of living in the different member states.