More UAE shoppers are ringing up the virtual tills, data from a new online survey shows.
About 42 per cent of those surveyed by Mastercard in the UAE say they are shopping on the internet, up from 29 per cent in 2009, according to its survey for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.
The outlook for e-commerce looks positive as well, with 69 per cent of people in the UAE saying they are likely to make an online purchase in the next six months, compared to 62 per cent in 2009.
This bodes well for the at least 10 online retail portals which were launched from the Emirates last year, ranging from retail giant Carrefour to local entrepreneurs such as Aido.com.
But there is still much room to grow.
Online shopping in the UAE represents only a small portion of the total retail market. In 2009, consumers spent about $19.6 million using the internet compared with an estimated total of $10.9 billion of non-grocery retail spending, data from the research company Euromonitor shows.
One longstanding hurdle continues to be concerns about data security.
On Mastercard's latest survey, taken in the fourth quarter of last year, 45 per cent of people in UAE say they do not feel secure shopping online.
aligaya@thenational.ae
FOLLOW OUR BUSINESS TWEETS: twitter.com/biznationaluae
