Big surge in online shopping for Singapore

Singaporeans spent about 689 million (526 million U.S. dollars) online last year -- 15 times more than 1999, local daily The Straits Times said on Tuesday.

And this year's sum is expected to exceed 716 million Singapore dollars (546 million U.S. dollars), according to numbers compiled by market research firm Euromonitor International said.

It derived them by adding up all individual online transactions made with Singapore credit cards throughout the year, made both on local and international websites.

The most popular sectors were clothing and footwear and consumer electronics, accounting for 60 percent of Singapore residents' online transactions last year.

Other growing sectors include healthcare products and grocery items.

There are many reasons for the surge in online shopping, said Euromonitor.

These include more household having Internet access and people here becoming more technology-savvy.

Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore's figures show that household Internet access increased from 65 percent in 2003 to 81 percent last year.

Other reasons include the relatively low prices of products online compared to those in the shops and better variety. 
(Source:xinhua)