Turkish shoppers hike online spending

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

Turks bought 22.1 billioın Turkish Liras worth of products online in the first nine months of the year, figures say. Hürriyet photo

Online shopping is gaining more popularity among Turkish customers, according to official data that shows higher spending from both domestic and international shopping websites.

Turks bought more than 22.1 billion Turkish Liras worth of products online using domestic credit cards in the first nine months of this year, according to the Interbank Card Center data.

The number of transactions with domestic cards in Turkey was 111.6 million and the figure for international transactions was 12.5 million in the January - September period of this year. The total number of transactions increased 27 percent year-on-year to more than 124.1 million in this period. Last year’s total transaction figure in the first nine months was 97.7 million. The highest number of monthly credit card transactions this year was recorded in July with nearly 15.1 million.

The volume of both domestic and international transactions using domestic credit cards was up 35.4 percent, reaching 22.1 billion liras. The figure was 16.3 billion liras in the first nine months of 2011. Domestic spending amounted to 20.7 billion liras, while international spending surpassed 1.3 billion liras. The highest monthly spending was 3.3 billion liras in July.

In the third quarter, the number of total transactions with domestic credit cards amounted to 43.3 million, more than one third oft he total figure in the first nine months.