13 February 2009. Shall we buy the new washing machine in a shop or order it on the Internet? Among Swiss consumers, this is now no more than a question of personal preference since increasing numbers of them are buying goods on the Internet.

Study by Gottlieb Duttweiler Chair
In 2008 alone, Swiss consumers purchased products in the amount of CHF 5.87bn through the Internet – an increase of more than 38% within two years. This is the result of a long-term study conducted by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Chair of International Retail Management at the University of St.Gallen.

Internet as central distribution channel
A new version of the study shows how the Internet has evolved into a central distribution channel over the last ten years. The results will be presented on the occasion of Switzerland’s biggest Internet congress, the St.Gallen Internet Day, on 28 April 2009. More than 1000 people were interviewed at the end of 2008 for the purposes of the study for the sixth consecutive time.

Long-term analysis of changes in user behaviour
The new version of the study does not only provide reliable and statistically substantiated market data, but for the first time also a ten-year long-term analysis of the changes in user behavior patterns.

According to the authors of this study on Der Schweizer Online-Handel – Internetnutzung Schweiz 2009, the strong growth in Internet purchases is largely due to holiday travel (+9.6% online customers), flight bookings (+7.6%), trade in second-hand products (+3.6%) and electrical appliances (+1.2%).