Yousef Al Arabi (Abu Dhabi)
The volume of UAE residents’ online purchases grew by 46% during the year 2021 to reach 39.7 billion dirhams ($10.82 billion), compared to regarding 27 billion dirhams ($7.38 billion) in 2020, according to the annual report of We Are Social. are social” and “HootSuite” social media management platform.
And the report’s data indicated that the number of Internet users who made purchases via the Internet during the past year amounted to 6.93 million users, an increase of regarding 3.3% compared to the year 2020.
The average per capita spending on Internet purchases was regarding 5,728 dirhams ($1,561), while 68.5% of purchases were made via smart phones.
Fashion
Internet purchases were distributed at $4.42 billion (16.2 billion dirhams) on “fashion” clothing products, an increase of 63%, while electronics came in second place, with a total of $2.11 billion (7.74 billion dirhams), following recording an annual increase of 15%.
Furniture ranked third in the list of best-selling online goods in the UAE during the past year, with a total of 1.31 billion dollars (4.8 billion dirhams), with an annual increase of 52%, followed by personal care products and home supplies with a total of 1.12 billion dollars (4.11 billion dirhams), which recorded 44% increase compared to 2020.
Games and hobbies came in fifth place with a total of $970.7 million (3.56 billion dirhams), recording an increase of 53%, then multimedia by $576.3 million (2.11 billion dirhams), an increase of 42%, while food products came seventh with a total of 250 million dollars (917.5 million dirhams). ), an increase of 77%.
Beverages ranked eighth, with a total of $62.81 million (230.51 million dirhams), an increase of 79%.
digital media
In terms of digital media, spending amounted to $514.9 million (1.89 billion dirhams), an annual increase of 8.3%. This included spending on electronic games $277.3 million (1.01 billion dirhams), an increase of 7.4%.
Spending on digital media included $119.8 million (439.66 million dirhams) for video on demand, which saw a year-on-year increase of 9.3%. It also included electronic publishing by $64.06 million (235.1 million dirhams), an increase of 4.1%, while spending on music grew by 17% to reach $53.79 million (197.4 million dirhams).
encouraging factors
The report indicated that free delivery is at the top of the encouraging factors for buying goods online in the UAE, according to the testimony of 54.7% of the segment of customers that were surveyed, whose opinions ranged from 16 to 64 years. And 33% of them reported that express delivery the next day came in second place, followed by free coupons and rebates by 32.7%, then easy returns by 32.5%, followed by loyalty programs by 32%.
The cash on delivery feature was among the most encouraging factors for users to purchase goods online, according to 29.9% of the surveyed user segment, followed by customer ratings at 26.5%, followed by ease of completing the purchase process by 23.3%.
With regard to financial inclusion, the annual report stated that 87.4% of the 15-year-old group have an account in a financial institution, and 45.4% have a credit card.