Men more likely to shop online
WOMEN use the internet as much as men, but men are more likely to shop online, research showed on Friday.
Almost half the population now uses the internet on a daily basis, with usage similar across all age groups, according to The Royal Bank of Scotland.
Women are more likely to go online to gather information than men, with 64% against 61% using it to find things out, and the over 65s are almost as likely to use it in this way as 16 to 24-year-olds, with 65% compared to 66% using it to get information. But women are less likely to have bought something online than men, with just 43% making a purchase over the internet compared to 54% of men.
The research found that 63% of people who use the internet do so to get information, 20% use e-mail, 18% go online to shop. But just 7% bank over the internet. About 43% of people claim to use the internet at least once a day, 22% use it three times a week, and further 15% say they use it on a weekly basis.
According to the survey, it is inertia rather than security worries which stops most people from banking online, with 26% giving this as the reason why they do not use the Internet to keep tabs of their finances. But a further 26% said they preferred other channels such as branches and telephone banking.
Only 19% of those questioned said security fears put them off opening an internet account. But the Royal Bank of Scotland said fears about security seemed to be diminishing and it was mainly people in the 45 to 64 age group who expressed concern about it.
The figure is also lower than the 29% of people who say fears over security are the main reason they do not shop online.
Among those who do bank online the most popular transaction was viewing account balances, with 88% of people using the internet to do this. This was followed by 72% of people who went online to transfer funds, 58% who used the internet to pay bills, and 19% who had applied for a credit card, loan, savings account, mortgage or insurance product over the internet.
But while 64% of people said they used the internet when planning a holiday to research a destination and compare prices, just 39% said they would buy a holiday online.
Gordon Gourlay, director of channel delivery at RBS, said: 'When we launched our internet banking service five years ago, there were only 7.2m internet users in Britain, only 8% of people ever made purchases online and most internet users were men. More than three times that number now have access to the internet, at home and at work, one in five shop online regularly, and many more women are internet savvy.'
Taylor Nelson Sofres questioned 1,000 people by telephone between 30 April 30 and 2 May.
