Pago Retail Report 2008 - published by Deutsche Card Services - reveals large-scale changes in purchasing and payment behavior

Women predominate in European online retail for the first time. 53.40% of all transactions were initiated by women, 46.60% by men.

This is the result revealed by the Pago Retail Report 2008, which was just published by Deutsche Card Services, a member of Deutsche Bank Group. In the preceding year men still had a lead of more than 11%. In contrast to other research, this report of "Purchasing and Payment Behaviour in Online Retail" is based on real-life purchase transactions and not on the analysis of polls and surveys. The Pago Retail Report is based on the evaluation of about 7.5 million retail purchase transactions processed through the Pago platform between October 2006 and September 2007. The data analysis of purchasing and payment behaviour and non-payment risk was supported by experts from the University of Karlsruhe.

Weekend has caught up in overall European retailing

German female online customers have increased their lead more than their counterparts in Europe as a whole. They dominate retail at a rate of 55% versus 45%. For comparison: Men lead in the UK (52% versus 48%) and the rest of Europe (64% versus 36%). There is also a gender imbalance in terms of the preferred days for online retail purchasing. Women prefer Wednesdays with 17.41% of their retail transactions while Mondays are men's favourite days (17.15%). This purchasing day has replaced Wednesday as number one in overall e-commerce. By the way, Saturdays are least attractive for both women and men, with a share of only 10% according to the Pago Retail Report 2008. Generally, however, the weekend has caught up in European retail. In fact, consumers buy more in German shops on Saturdays than on Fridays (13.37% versus 13.29% of all weekly transactions).

German consumers prefer working hours for online shopping

What is the favorite time of the day for shopping? German consumers accomplish most of their transactions (e.g. 59.74%) during working hours between 8am and 6pm - not only in retail but also in overall e-commerce. This figure beats its counterpart for overall e-commerce (53.10%), which also covers segments such as gambling (gambling and sport bets), services (telecommunications and internet) and travel & entertainment. In the UK the preference for office hours is even more obvious (64.48%). This was to be expected, as this period was also top in overall e-commerce according to the Pago Report 2008.

"Erika Mustermann vs. John Smith"

German consumers' purchasing behaviour in online shops considerably differs from UK consumers as the comparison of "the typical German" with "the typical Brit" demonstrates. For example, "Erika Mustermann" prefers ordering her new winter boots for about EUR 70 in a popular German online shop on a cold December Monday during her lunch time between noon and 2pm. Whereas "John Smith from Sheffield" searches an online shop for home entertainment on a Tuesday a few days before Christmas just between 2pm and 4pm and buys at least a portable music player for the equivalent of about EUR 135.

Dutch consumers surprisingly active in European retail

According to the Pago Retail Report 2008 Dutch people are most active in retail purchases as far as the rest of Europe is concerned, just behind German and UK consumers. They achieve a rate of 27.33% and rank ahead of the Austrian and French consumers, who are placed third in overall European e-commerce. A look at the infrastructural basis in the Netherlands shows that their good ranking is not astonishing: According to the ComScore analysis 2008, 82% of the Dutch aged above 15 are online - the highest proportion in all of Europe, 32.8% use DSL - the highest proportion all over the world.

Pago Retail Report 2008 is extending the results of the Pago Report 2008
The Pago Retail Report 2008 differentiates between consumers from Germany, the UK, the rest of Europe and countries outside Europe. Due to Deutsche Card Services' licensing area the merchants come only from European countries. That is why the first interpretation of newer payment methods such as giropay and Maestro becomes even more obvious. They achieve remarkable rates outside of Germany. Only retail shops which offer certain goods and resemble traditional mail-order businesses are included into the evaluation. So the Pago Retail Report is extending the Pago Report 2008, which deals with the overall e-commerce and was published earlier in 2008.

The Pago Retail Report 2008 is available at a price of EUR 250 (plus VAT). For more information please visit www.ecommerce-report.de.