Almost one in ten Belgians shop online every week

Belgians are opting for online shopping far more often. The AXA Partners survey makes this crystal clear – in 2019, 85% of Belgians indicated that they sometimes shop online, while this rose to 93% this year. What is striking here? Not only more Belgians are finding their way to webshops, they also actually shop online much more frequently. 'In recent years, we have already seen this in the number of Belgians who shop online every month. In 2018 it was 24%, rising to 29% in 2019, and it is about 34% this year,' says Guy Serdobbel.

One out of three Belgians has already been a scam victim with an online purchase

The AXA Partners research shows that online orders do occasionally go wrong. About a third (31%) of Belgian online shoppers say they have already been scammed when ordering online. And increasing numbers of Belgians are finding their way to webshops compared to previous years. Unfortunately, this is also accompanied by an increase in the number of problems, such as wrongly delivered or undelivered packages, and products that do not meet expectations. While in 2018 and 2019 respectively 14% and 19% of Belgians were victims of fraud when placing an order online, this has now risen to 31%.

But where do things go wrong precisely? In 41% of the cases, the package never arrived. Remarkable, given that this percentage was only 29% in 2019. Other frequent complaints are products that do not match the online description (36%), very long delivery times (29%) or subconsciously (accidentally) subscribing to a subscription service (14%).

In fact, 82% of Belgians check whether a webshop is reliable

To avoid disappointment, 82% of Belgians check before purchasing whether a webshop is reliable or not. How do they do that?

• They read reviews about the webshop (36%)
• Run the name of the webshop through a search engine and check the results (32%)
• Check if the connection is secure (31%)
• Check the type of the internet connection (30%)
• Only buy through official webshops from physical stores (23%)

'Belgians who shop online are increasingly confronted with scams. It is good to see that the majority of Belgian shoppers do their homework before buying online. But there is certainly still some work to be done. Three out of five online shoppers occasionally order something from a webshop that they did not know before. Our research shows that it is important to inform people who shop less regularly online about the things that can go wrong and to teach them about the points for attention 'says Guy Serdobbel.

Five tips for safe online shopping

Sofie Geeroms is Managing Director of BeCommerce, the Belgian association of webshops. And she has compiled five tips for safe online shopping.

1. Cheap and safe do not always go together. Does it seem too good to be true? Then it often is. When you discover a new webshop, it is best to first look for experiences or reviews from other users.
2. Does the webshop have customer service? A safe webshop always indicates where the store is located and how you can reach customer service. What if you have doubts? Just give them a call or send an email.
3. Pay extra attention to the URL of the payment module. It is only secure if there is a lock showing in the address bar and the URL starts with 'https: //'.
4. Does the webshop have a trust mark or quality label? If it does, you can trust the webshop. BeCommerce developed a trust mark in 2005 to help consumers. Webshops can obtain this trust mark after a thorough independent audit based on a checklist. In addition to that, the webshops undergo a security scan every six months.
5. What about reflection time and return costs? As a consumer you always have 14 days to withdraw from the purchase agreement. Finally, it is always best to check in advance how much you would have to pay to return an item.

Is there a safety net for fake webshops or internet scams?

As people shop more through the internet, online shoppers are demanding guarantees in case a transaction goes wrong. That is why AXA Partners developed Privacy Assist. You can expand your insurance or banking products with a safety net that not only protects against the financial but also the psychological consequences of internet fraud and shopping through fake webshops.

Would you like to know more about this? Please feel free to contact us.

*Online survey conducted by the research agency iVOX in collaboration with FINN on behalf of AXA Partners between July 16, 2020 and July 23, 2020, among a group of 1000 Belgians, representative of language, gender, age and education. The maximum margin of error for 1000 Belgians is 3.02%.