WASHINGTON, DC — Consumers enjoy purchasing merchandise and services online because the process is convenient, saves them time, and can save them money. Still, three-quarters of online shoppers say they continue to worry about the safety of their personal financial information on the Web, according to a recent report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.Released last week, the results of a September survey indicated the majority of Americans find online purchasing convenient (78-percent) and time-saving (68-percent). But that doesn’t mean they’re comfortable with the security of transactions, respondents said.

“These inconsistent notions about the online shopping environment show that, even as e-commerce matures, people’s confidence in the security of online shopping remains as an issue,” said Pew Internet Project Associate Director John B. Horrigan, who authored the report. “If people’s worries about security of personal information were eased, the pool of online shoppers would be greater.”

The report, entitled “Online Shopping: Internet users like the convenience but worry about the security of their financial information,” found 66 percent of online Americans have bought products and/or services online. Horrigan estimated the share of internet users making purchases online could be as high as 69-percent if online Americans did not have such high levels of concern about sending personal or credit card information over the internet.

The report also discovered that low-income Americans are most likely to express concerns about sharing personal information online and least likely to see possible time savings or convenience in e-commerce:
• Among internet users in homes with annual incomes below $25,000, 44-percent strongly agreed they don’t like providing credit card information online. The figure was twice the share (22-percent) that strongly agreed online shopping is convenient.
• For upper-income Americans (those in households with annual incomes above $100,000), the numbers reversed, with one quarter saying they didn’t like sending credit card information over the internet, while 36-percent strongly agreed that online shopping is convenient.

In broad terms, the report found that the number of Americans who have ever bought anything online has more than doubled since 2000, from 22-percent in June 2000 to 49-percent in September 2007. People across the board are more likely to do background research on a product than execute a purchase online: In September 2007, some 60-percent of all Americans said they have used the Web for product-related research, up from 35-percent who reported doing so in June 2000.

The September 2007 survey also found increases in the use of the internet for banking and online classified ads. Thirty-nine percent of Americans now say they have used the internet for banking, up from 27-percent in February 2005. Twenty-four percent reported having used online classifieds like Craig’s List in the September 2007 survey, nearly doubling the 14-percent who reported online classified use in February 2005.

The report was based on data collected by telephone from a random sample of 2,400 adults 18 and older.