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Trade: Electronic trade market in Romania dominated by women, like in EU
European electronic trade market is dominated by women (56%), while the Romanian market followed European tendencies, according to the latest study “E-commerce 2023 barometer. Why we like e-shopper women”, released by a local courier company on last Tuesday.
According to DPD Romania, the top of products preferred by Romanian online shoppers includes categories like Beauty/Health Care (64% against 48% EU average), Fashion (Romania 63%, EU 59%) and Footwear (Romania 59%, EU 49%). They are followed by Medicines, a segment ranking 6th at European level.
The study shows that the top Romanian e-shopper is female (56%, as the EU average), of an average age of 40.5 years (EU 42.4 years), with average plus incomes (39%, EU 44%), who receives over 3 packages per month and lives in the urban area (89%, EU 86%).
The large majoirty of this type of consumers (80%) post on Facebook after an online purchase (EU 69%), while 73% follow the influencers' activity (56% EU average).
As for woman shoppers, the DPD Romania study shows that, most of them are young, in the 18-34 year category (50%), the 35-54 year category being also well represented (37%), are from Moldova (22%), Transylvania (21%), Wallachia (16%) and Bucharest (14%) and are living in big towns of up to 250,000 inhabitants (33%).
In context, about three quarters of females (73%) consider price as a determining factor for purchases (61% EU average). Romanian women are champions for the chapters “looking for bargains”(83%, EU average 69%), “looking for discounts and Black Friday type events and season sales (71% vs 53% in EU).
According to the study, which includes an important chapter devoted to regional markets of interest for Romanian online stores, such as Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, e-shoppers of those countries often make online purchases abroad, which is an important opportunity. Therefore, the main categories of products bought online in South-Eastern Europe are, as in Romania, in the Beauty/health Care, Fashion and Footwear categories.
At the same time, while Romanians rank first for Beauty/Health Care products (64%), Slovaks are most interested in Fashion products (69%), Poles in Footwear (64%), Hungarians in Fresh-food (43%), while Bulgarians exceed the EU average for books (47%), the same as Poles (50%).
The 2023 e-commerce barometer has an important chapter devoted to courier markets and it shows that an important criterium considered by European consumers when they decide on online buying refers to free delivery (40%), considered the number 1 electronic trade development engine. Romanians have an average of 41%, a little over the European average.
“On the other hand, while for European e-shoppers the most important crtiterium is free return (27%), Romanians do not seem to care much about this aspect (23%, 4th criterium). Last year alone only 9% of buyers returned purchases; twice less than in EU in 2021 (EU 14%).
However, the return process was perceived as one that does not need too much effort (Romania 53%, EU 55%). That could be explained by the fact that many e-shoppers checked return policies before buying and whether online shops had improved their services and products a lot. In most cases (61%) the returned package was picked by couriers from the e-shopper's address (25% in EU), the study mentions.
For 81% of Romanian e-shoppers (71% in EU) it is important to know beforehand which courier is used, the main reasons being: more secure delivery when they know the courier (Romania 48%, EU 37%), delivery quality (Romania 32%, EU 36%) or because they can avoid a courier with which they had problems before (Romania 27%, EU 30%).
Moreover, Romanian e-shoppers are far from the European average (78%) for preferring home deliveries (84%). Post offices are far from delivery preferences -25% (15% EU), as well as lockers (Romania 25%, EU 20%). Romanian online buyers prefer cash on delivery payments (Romania 15%, EU 7%).
DPD Romania courier company is part of DPDgroup/Geopost, a European leader for road deliveries and has been active in the local market since 2008, after taking over Pegasus Courier. The operator has over 1,800 employees and delivers more than 22 million packages yearly.