By Martin Haering

Akamai Technologies International AG (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading provider of cloud optimization services, today announced findings of research looking at trends in European consumer behaviour when buying goods and services online it has commissioned IDC (www.idc.com) with, comprising of interviews with 1, 500 consumers in six European countries (France, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden). The research (IDC Retail Insights Consumer Survey, May 2010) shows a number of trends and findings that will be of interest to both retailers and e-commerce vendors. The findings included the fact that the majority of consumers expect a website to load in less than four seconds, and in some cases two seconds, otherwise (around 70%) will switch to another, probably competitive, website.

Other key findings in the research include:

• 30% of respondents indicated an increase in online spending during 2010, with the fastest growing e-commerce market in Europe being Spain, where 44% of consumers reported a willingness to spend more online.

• 62% of respondents purchased clothes and footwear online making this the largest category of spend in the survey (this was followed by more ‘traditional’ online items such as books and magazines (59%), with online travel accounting at 47% of spend).

• The group of highest spenders online in Europe (each spending around Euro 1, 500 per year) tend to be aged between 35 to 54 years.

• Nearly 30% of respondents are using, or plan to use, mobile devices for some kind of e-commerce. Within this group there is a 10% core of respondents that are already using their mobile/smart phones for retail search, price comparison or online purchasing. In addition, another 20% of respondents are planning to do this in the future, so a full third of respondents will be using the mobile channel in the short-term for e-commerce.

• On average multichannel shoppers spend 15-30% more than someone who only uses one channel.

These findings show that consumers in Europe are pushing the edges of e-commerce, demanding greater performance from their online shopping experience. With increasing numbers of shoppers going online with mobile devices, it is important for retailers to get their mobile e-commerce strategies right the first time and the need for security, website performance, scalability and availability has never been more important to underpin success in the online marketplace.

Ivano Ortis, Research Director at IDC Retail Insights, who carried-out the research, said; “e-commerce sales keep growing – despite the recession online sales grew by over 20% in 2009 - and the market is rapidly diversifying. Categories of goods that were previously thought to be for in-store shopping only are making remarkable inroads online – for example apparel & footwear. Basket size is increasing, as is the level of services and support that customers are expecting from e-commerce websites.”

About the author and the company

Martin Haering is VP International Marketing at Akamai. Akamai® provides market-leading, cloud-based services for optimizing Web and mobile content and applications, online HD video, and secure e-commerce. Combining highly-distributed, energy-efficient computing with intelligent software, Akamai’s global platform is transforming the cloud into a more viable place to inform, entertain, advertise, transact and collaborate. To learn how the world’s leading enterprises are optimizing their business in the cloud, please visit http://www.akamai.com and follow @Akamai on Twitter.