Eurostat: EU consumer spending and online shopping survey 2023

Final consumption expenditure of EU households, adjusted for inflation, rises slightly by 0.5% in 2023. By comparison, it is 5.7% higher in 2022 than in 2021, when COVID-19 restrictions were still in place.

Last year, the largest increase in household consumption expenditure was in catering, accommodation and services (+4.6%), followed by transportation (+4.3%) and entertainment, sports and culture (+3.0%). Since 2021, household consumption expenditure on catering, accommodation and services and entertainment, sports and culture has increased significantly, up 41.3% and 23.5% respectively.

On the other hand, furniture, household equipment and routine household maintenance will see the largest decrease in 2023 (-4.9%), followed by food and non-alcoholic beverages (-3.7%), and alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics (-2.2%).

In 2023, 58.1% of people aged 16-74 in the EU reported that they had purchased or ordered goods or services via the internet in the 3 months prior to the survey.

In contrast, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia (national data), Cyprus and Latvia all have a lower share of their population using e-commerce than the EU average.

In 2023, at least 80.0% of people aged 16-74 have bought or ordered goods or services for private use online in 21 regions: 11 regions in the Netherlands, 4 regions in Sweden, 3 regions in Denmark, followed by 2 regions in Ireland and 1 region in the Czech Republic. The top three regions with the highest percentage of people buying or ordering goods or services via the internet are all located in the Netherlands in Utrecht (87.8%), North Holland (86.4%) and Upper Holland (85.9%).

By contrast, there are 20 EU regions where less than 35% of the population will have purchased or ordered goods or services via the internet in 2023: six regions in Romania, five in Italy and Bulgaria, three in the outermost regions of France and one in Poland. Finally, there are only two regions where less than one in five people use e-commerce - Bulgaria's Yugoslavia region (19.8%) and France's outermost region of Guadeloupe (18.7%).