Time is money for online shoppers

NEWS Despite a number of recent high profile ecommerce failures, users are showing increased use of the net to do their shopping. The report found that a quarter of "veteran" users - those with over two years' online experience - were spending as much as E1,000 (£600) in the last year, while a third of "newbies" - with less than 12 months' experience - had spent just E100 (£60) in the same period. Mark Mulligan, analyst with Jupiter Research, said: "Online consumers are initially more comfortable buying inexpensive items but graduate to higher margin purchases as they become more familiar and confident with use of the internet as a shopping tool." The survey of 6,000 internet users in seven European countries found further evidence for its conclusion because users in countries with high internet penetration tended to spend more. In Sweden, where penetration is 51 per cent, the reported average spend per user was E1,043 (£624), while in France, where penetration is 18 per cent, spend was only E520 (£312). According to the Gartner Group, European spending over the internet in 2000 will double compared to last year, reaching $14bn (£10bn). The report projects that by 2005 almost 75 per cent of European internet users (128 million) will be veteran users and only seven per cent (12 million) will be newbies. By Geoffrey Davies