More than half of British pensioners and 82 per cent of all adults now shop online, new figures reveal
- For the first time more than half those 65 and over said they shopped online
- Research also reveals more than four in five bought online in the last year
- But it comes amid more bad news for high street with empty shops at 4-year high
More than half of British adults aged 65 and over now shop online, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The data showed 82 per cent of all British adults bought goods or services online this year, an increase of 5 per cent on 2018.
The figures, detailing household and individual internet use in Great Britain, said 87 per cent of all adults now used the internet daily or almost every day.
The reported rise in online shopping coincides with new figures from the British Retail Consortium, which show the number of empty shops in town centres has climbed back to a high last reached in 2015, when vacancy levels were only just descending from a peak during the double-dip recession of 2012.
For the first time figures show more than half of British pensioners shopped online last year
This year marks the first time that more than half (54 per cent) of those aged 65 and over – traditionally the age range which uses the internet the least frequently – said they had shopped online.
The ONS figures said 93 per cent of British households now had access to the internet, up three per cent on last year and a rise of 23 per cent in the last decade.
Of the seven per cent of households without internet access, nearly two-thirds said they felt they did not need it, and one third cited privacy and security concerns as one of the reasons they did not need access.
That is a sharp rise on the last time the question was asked – in 2017 – when only seven per cent said privacy or security concerns were a factor in not going online.
Since then, a number of high-profile data breaches have affected companies, including Facebook, while internet and social media platforms have come under increased scrutiny over their data-gathering practices and how they protect their users.
ONS figures said 93 per cent of British households now had access to the internet, up three per cent on last year and a rise of 23 per cent in the last decade.
According to the figures, seven per cent of adults have also experienced fraudulent credit or debit card use in the last year linked to their use of the internet.
The most commonly cited security issue was fraudulent email and messages (37%) and being redirected to fake websites asking for personal information (24%).
Sending and receiving emails remains the most common activity online among all adults, with 86% using the internet in this way.
Making video or voice calls over the internet, through services such as Skype or Apple’s FaceTime, also reached 50 per cent for the first time, with usage having trebled in the last decade.
The figures also show that more people use the internet to access an instant messaging service such as WhatsApp (72%) than to read online news (66%).