Just a few weeks before the start of the busiest shopping period of the year, PayPal analysts predict that 2016 could see an impressive boom in e-commerce for the e-trade industry.
During the holiday season, the world will make an increased number of purchases, including those made via mobile devices. According to PayPal estimates, 2016's biggest mobile device transaction will exceed the amount of 64.000 dollars.
An increase in mobile shopping is also expected in Greece: according to research by PayPal and GfK[1], the 66% of active Internet users already use mobile devices to make online purchases.
On the recently established 'Cyber Monday' alone, i.e. the Monday dedicated to online offers specifically for technology products (this year this day is November 28), PayPal expects that the volume of payments will exceed 25.000 dollars per second. By comparison, PayPal usually records a payment volume of about the order of 10.900 dollars per second on regular shop business days. Last year, Online Monday saw the highest number of transactions made in a single day in PayPal history, 450 payments per second.
Based on the predictions of PayPal specialists, 2016's most popular shopping categories will include electronics, clothing and car parts. In December of 2016, PayPal also expects at least 17 millions of P2P transactions (between individuals) specifically related to the sharing of the cost of purchasing gifts or transferring money between friends and relatives.
In addition, we can expect the figures for online financial support in the period before Christmas can be extremely interesting due to the growing popularity of online donations.
Those carried out by 2015 viaPayPal to community-based organisms reached over 857 million in cash for 250.000 non-profit clubs and foundations, engaging over 7 millions users into a 183 markets. 45,8 millions were spent with PayPal on donations a day #Giving Tuesday 2015. This charitable move has even arrived in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest amount of money collected for charity in just one day.
PayPal expects to see an increase in online donations and 2016 again, and payments to be made for charity through mobile devices will increase 45%.
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[1] On PayPal's behalf, GfK interviewed a representative quota sample of 1,000 internet users (aged 18 – 65) across Poland who own and/or use an internet-enabled device. The survey was conducted in June 2016, using an online questionnaire (Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing – CAWI). The structure of the sample was adjusted by controlling the age / gender quotas to match the structure of Polish internet users in terms of gender and age.