Additionally, over one-fifth would consider actually buying a home online.
The survey looked into the online shopping habits of British consumers and discovered that flights are the most common online purchase amongst consumers, with 69.4 per cent having bought plane tickets online.
Books, CDs and DVDs, electrical goods and tickets are also frequently purchased on the internet, with over half of all the respondents reporting that they had bought these products online.
Many more consumers use the internet to research their options before making their actual purchase offline. Houses and cars were the most researched products online by a long way, with 59.7 per cent of consumers researching homes online and 46.8 per cent looking at cars.
The survey also asked which products consumers would not consider buying online. Around one-third of consumers specified that they would not buy wine, groceries or cars on the internet and would only buy these items offline. Less than 10 per cent said they would only buy a property offline.
Convenience in being able to shop in their own time was the number one reason consumers gave for preferring to shop online, closely followed by being able to get cheaper prices and better deals and having more options to choose from.
Approximately £17 billion was spent online in 2004. Over half (55 per cent) of the British population are now online and over 70 per cent of these use the internet to search for goods and services which equates to over 23 million e-consumers in the UK alone.
The SmartNewHomes.com website itself receives an average of over half a million visits each month – 120 per cent more than two years ago.
David Bexon, managing director of SmartNewHomes, commented: “More and more people are realising the benefits of using the internet to research and buy a multitude of products. The fact that an expensive and non-returnable item such as flight tickets is the most popular item to buy online shows the confidence that consumers now have in this method of shopping.
“Online shopping can often give the consumer a better deal or cheaper prices and allows them to research all their options from the comfort of their home or office. That is especially beneficial with a big commitment like a house purchase and is reflected by the large number of property websites in existence.
"With tools such as virtual tours and e-brochures becoming more common place, it is only a matter of time before we see consumers buying properties directly over the internet. For buyers such as investors who purchase properties off-plan, this would not be a big leap from the way they currently buy houses, and any additional discount secured by cutting overheads equates to greater returns on their investment.”
