I have written in the past of the growing European online market and why North American retail sites should make themselves friendly to European customers. An exchange rate favorable to the Euro makes American products affordable to European customers. While Europeans are getting online in incredible numbers European ecommerce lags somewhat behind.

A study just released by the European Commission throws some light on the online buying habits of European consumers. Here are some highlights;

27% of the population of Europe made some sort of online purchase over the last twelve months. This is good news, there are more than 460 million people in Europe with nearly 240 million regular internet users. Upcoming expansion of the European Union should add another 25 million regular web users.

Those making online purchases were about equally divided between making those buys at home or at the work place. No big surprise there, the numbers roughly match the habits of North America.

Only 6% of the population made online purchases from outside their own region. Ouch. This statistic and other in the study reveal that European are extremely suspicious of foreign purchases. 71% said they feared it would be harder to resolve disputes and 68% believed themselves more likely to a victim of a scam.

While that 6% may seem paltry, keep in mind that 6% of the European population still equals 27.6 million purchases assuming only one per person. Also remember that the questions about regions outside of the respondent’s own were meant to apply to other European Union members. For example, how does a buyer in France feel about making online purchases from a company in Sweden. As a result it is only with caution that they should be applied to companies elsewhere.

I also suggest that European’s confidence in online shopping will grow as slowly but surely they gain experience with international orders. Check in this time next year and see if that 6% hasn’t grown to 10 or 12%.