Brussels – Online shopping? Convenient, fast, but not always reliable. On the contrary, buying online for one in three Europeans can be a problem. This is what Eurostat notes in its “census” of complaints from men and women in the EU who buy by the click of a button. Deliveries beyond the terms assured at the time of purchase, websites that are unintuitive and not easy to navigate, or delivery of products that are damaged or even different from those paid for are the most frequent problems, affecting 33.1 per cent of those who used e-commerce in 2023.
This is an average European figure, as among the EU member states there are far higher percentages of customers who have experienced problems related to online purchases, especially in Luxembourg (55.5 per cent), the Netherlands (55.2 per cent) and Spain (49.7 per cent). Italy is less affected by mishaps, in last place for bad surprises.
However, “problem” does not mean “fraud”. As mentioned, and as certified by the European Statistical Institute, the most common problems when relying on the Internet for purchases are longer wait times, and thus slower deliveries or packages arriving with different contents in nature or integrity. Problems are therefore more related to the shipping service. E-commerce, judging by what Europeans are saying, is still scam-proof in its own right.
