A global look at how much consumers trust online retailers with their personal data

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of e-commerce. With many non-essential shops closed across the world for large periods of 2020, and an increasing number of people staying at home to shield from the virus, online retailers have become the primary method of shopping for many. Given the new-found dependence on e-commerce across the world, are consumers now comfortable handing over their personal details to these retailers?

International data collected by YouGov shows that globally, only 14% of people are comfortable entrusting their personal details to online retailers. People from Poland (50%) and Germany (35%) are the most trusting by a long way – while trust is lower among those in Indonesia (6%), France (5%) and Singapore (5%).

Consumer reluctance to trust online retailers with their personal data is likely triggered by the lack of adequate understanding of the destination and purpose of the data collected. To address this, retailers have been attempting to educate consumers of the benefits in terms of creating a more user-friendly experience.

However, as we can see in countries right the way round the world, online retailers still have a long way to go to gain the trust of consumers around the world.

Of the sectors YouGov looked at, online retailers came in sixth place.

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Methodology: Research was conducted in February 2021 across multiple markets. Overall regional sample sizes are between 505 and 2,251. The data is weighted to be representative of the adult (18+) population in each country individually.