Over half of consumers across the UK and US have made a cross-border purchase from an e-commerce store in the last 12 months.
That is according to new research from Nosto, a commerce experience platform, which surveyed 2,000 respondents across the United Kingdom and United States and found that 52% had purchased from an e-commerce store based in another country within the last 12 months. A further 23% said they hadn’t, but had considered it, while the remaining 24.45% said they hadn’t considered it.
According to the data, while cross-border shopping has become a habit across generations, generally, younger consumers are more likely to have made at least one cross-border purchase in this period.
Among shoppers who have made at least one cross-border purchase in the last year, fashion & accessories is the category they’re most likely to purchase from overseas stores.
While price proved to be the biggest lure for consumers overall, for 16-24-year-olds the biggest motivator was, in fact, to get items they see mentioned on social media.
Additonally, more than half of consumers agreed that rising prices in their home country mean they’re more likely to look for products that might be more affordable overseas.
29% said they don’t mind buying fake/counterfeit products if they’re available and cheaper from an online store abroad, a figure that reaches 45% for 16-24 year-olds.
Significantly, nearly half of the respondents expressed concern about not being able to return products easily while there was an almost unanimous agreement that having clear, easy-to-find information about returns/refunds and additional taxes/duties would ease their trust in e-commerce stores abroad. Over 60% of respondents from all age groups reported this.
