Finland flag Finland: Buying and Selling

E-commerce in Finland

E-commerce

Internet access
Finland has an internet penetration rate of 92.5%, among the highest in the world. The use of the internet is widespread among all age groups: 93% of 16-24 year olds, 96% of 25-34 year-olds and 96% of 35-44 year-olds log on daily. The older generations also log on regularly with 45-54 year-olds and over 55s showing a 90% and 70% daily penetration rate, respectively. In the search engines market Google gets close to a monopoly, with a share of 96.6%. Bing and Yahoo have negligible shares (1.9% and 0.7% respectively).
E-commerce market
In 2017, the Finnish B2C e-commerce turnover reached EUR 9.8 billion, a 15% growth compared to the previous year. There are currently 3.32 million e-commerce users in Finland, with an additional 530,000 users expected to be shopping online by 2021. 90% of online shoppers in Finland buy using desktops, whereas the number of people buying using smartphones or tablets is still below 10%. While the use of mobile devices for purchasing is still low, trends show an increase in mobile commerce, especially amongst millennials. Finns rely heavily on foreign retailers for online purchases, and it is estimated that almost 50% of online shoppers have made purchases abroad. The top 3 product categories purchased from international retailers are clothing and footwear (especially for women), home electronics and media. The top sites for online shopping in Finland are tori.fi, verkkokauppa.com, eBay, oikotie.fi, and kela.fi. Recently there has been a rise of C2C sales of consumer goods and online services, the main platforms being online marketplaces such as Tori.fi and Huuto.net. On 1 January 2015, a reform of the Finnish regulation on information society came into effect. The Information Society Code sets regulations on e-privacy, consumer protection, communications networks, and data security. It aims to promote consumer protection, data security, simplified procedures and equal opportunities for service providers in the market.
Social media
In 2017 over 66% of the Finnish population aged 18 to 64 was active on social networks. Nevertheless active social media penetration - referring to not only registered social media users but also those who actively log into social media services on a monthly basis amounted to a little over 50% (Statista). This rate is considered low when compared to Northern European and Scandinavian standards. The main social media platforms are Facebook (around 2.5 million users), YouTube and Google+. LinkedIn and Twitter are each used by roughly 20% of Finns. The messaging service Whatsapp is widely used, especially among younger generations, where the penetration rate is at around 88% (compared to 56% of Facebook Messenger). Instagram has around 1.3 million users (of which 30% are in the age group 18-24).

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Latest Update: March 2024

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