The FINANCIAL — The first two months of this year saw an explosion in online shopping as shoppers grabbed their credit and debit cards to purchase a variety of goods on the Internet, leading to a 43 percent increase in shopping over the same period of last year, according to Today's Zaman.
According to data from the Interbank Card Center (BKM), TL 2.1 billion was spent shopping on the Internet domestically in the first two months of the year, a 65 percent increase compared to the same period of last year. The number of orders also increased by 43 percent to reach 12.2 million. The amount spent in the first two months of last year was TL 1.2 billion.
In 2009, consumers spent a total of TL 19 billion for mail, telephone and Internet orders, whereas this was TL 3.8 billion for the first two months of 2010. This represents 16 percent of all orders last year, indicating that shop-at-home orders could increase substantially by the end of this year.
With regard to credit cards, the data show that the number of credit cards had reached 88.9 million — well over the total population of Turkey — at the end of February. This represents a 2.4 percent increase over a year ago. The number of point-of-sale devices held by businesses increased by 6.2 percent to reach 3.4 million in the same time period. The number of ATMs increased by 9.4 percent to reach approximately 48,000.
According to the BKM, the highest concentration of virtual shops was found in the Marmara region with 45.6 percent choosing to operate their sites here. The total number of virtual shops reached some 22,500. Seventeen percent of these shops were located in Central Anatolia, and 35 percent of the shops were located in İstanbul.
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