Fletcher Research Concerns about security continue to be a barrier to buying online with 50 percent of the Internet users polled unhappy about giving their credit card details to online vendors. Conversely, Fletcher found only 18 percent of UK Internet users are happy to provide details of their credit cards. However, UK users are increasingly using the Web as a researchtool to make more informed on- and offline purchasing deceisions. The products that have been most heavily investigated online tend to be goods or services that cannot be experienced beforehand. Travel and holidays, books and CDs are popular with both men and women.
Computers remain popular, but remain a male dominated domain.
Forty percent of hardware buyers are men, Fletcher found, as are 44 percent of software buyers. Significantly, among older Web users over the age of 55, women are increasingly coming online, with women accounting for 33 percent of that age group, up sharply from 19 percent in May of this year. Fletcher also found differences in the way older and younger users use the Internet. The older they are the more this applies. Copyright 2001 INT Media Group, Incorporated All Rights Reserved.