According to an analysis by Deutsche Card Services, women played a predominant role in European online retailing. The "E-Retail-Report 2009" of the Deutsche Bank subsidiary shows that women initiated 61.35% of all transactions in European online shops. In the 2007 Report, men had made 56% of all purchases, women 44%. The latest Report also shows: online shopping is most popular outside large agglomerations and less so in large cities.

"That women predominate is surprising because men are more active in overall e-commerce. While women are obviously more cautious about services or travel-related items on the internet, they are more active in online retailing. This is an important result of our Report for merchants who do business in the respective sectors," says Detlef Henkel, Chairman of the Management Board of Deutsche Card Services. The Report also shows that online retailing is becoming more and more common. Says Henkel: "Merchants who want to benefit from this trend do not need to take unmanageable risks, particularly not if they rely on the expertise, advice and technical capabilities of an experienced partner."

The "E-Retail-Report 2009", which covers purchasing and payment behaviour and non-payment risks in online retailing, has been published for three years now; it is the successor of the well-known "Pago Retail-Report". In contrast to other analyses, the study is based on real-life purchase transactions and not on surveys. The database consists of roughly eight million transactions processed on the Deutsche Card Services platform.