"Although there has been a reduction, online shopping has gained an increasing weight in the total of purchases made over the past few weeks, registering a less significant drop compared to the global panorama of consumption in Portugal", explains SIBS in the weekly report that this instead includes the area of ​​online shopping. The operator of electronic payments has made available a weekly bulletin with the evolution of transactions, showing how the shopping habits of the Portuguese change in quarantine time.
Even so, the report shows that online shopping is also suffering from the confinement of the Portuguese. The number of online purchases "decreased by 30 points compared to the average recorded before the confirmation of the first case of COVID-19 registered in Portugal", says the company. "This figure compares with the drop in the number of face-to-face transactions in stores, which this week saw a 56 basis point drop in the number of total purchases compared to the average record before the start of the spread of the new Coronavirus in Portugal", advance.
Less purchases but more average spend value
Despite the reduction in the volume of purchases, the average amount of purchases in online commerce increased, from an average of 37.5 per purchase, before registering the first case of COVID-19, to the current 39.7 per purchase, registered in the week of March 23 to 30, with an increase of 6%.
The same happens in physical purchases, where the amount spent is higher, going to 38.8 in stores, 12% more than those recorded before the pandemic.
MB Way is less than the average purchase
SIBS has been running a campaign to promote the use of its MB Way app as a safer form of payment, for avoiding contact, but this form of payment is also decreasing, although less than cards. "Looking exclusively at purchases made through MB WAY, the less significant reduction in both physical and online commerce", says SIBS in a statement, saying that in physical purchases the drop was only 22 points compared to the average of the first months of the year , while in online shopping the drop was only 14 points compared to the average of the first months of the year.
Supermarkets and Farmcias dominate shopping
similar to what happened in the previous weeks, the majority of physical purchases are concentrated in Super and Hypermarkets, as well as in Farms and Parapharmacies, with the two sectors still representing more than half (58%) of purchases made in Portugal in the last week.
Once again, there is a tendency to reduce purchases abroad, which went down to less than a third of the face value before the confirmation of the first case of COVID-19 registered in Portugal. The value of purchases from foreigners in Portugal also had " a huge reduction of 85 points compared to the initial average ", indicates the same source.
Editor's Note: The news has been updated with more information and graphics. latest update 12:33
