ACT residents are the most paranoid in Australia when it comes to the theft of their credit details or private information online (96% vs 85% national average), according to the 2016 Sensis eBusiness Report.

Sensis Commercial Director, Rob Tolliday says that while almost three quarters of ACT residents are making purchases online, they remain uneasy about using ecommerce.

“Hacking is the biggest concern, with 96% of people in the ACT worrying about their private information being misused and the same amount worry about their credit card details,” Rob said.

“We’ve seen this play out with the ACT going against the national trend for online shopping, with a number of categories going backwards this year. This included the overall proportion who ordered goods online, which dropped five points.

“The study found ACT residents are the least likely to have ordered cosmetics online (9% vs 16%) or to have used Airbnb (5% vs 15%).

“ACT businesses are the second most likely to have a website (68%). Despite this, only a third have optimised their website for mobile devices (33%).”

Other key findings specific to ACT businesses are:

• They are the most likely to think being on page one of a Google search is important (66% vs 59%)
• ACT SMBs are the most likely to sell to interstate customers online (60% vs 47%). They are also the most likely to primarily target overseas customers (13% vs 2%)
• They are the most likely to use video conferencing (26% vs 19%), but the least likely to use online advertising (26% vs 32%) or cloud computing (25% vs 32%)
• ACT businesses with the internet are the least likely to have broadband internet (82% vs 87%).

[Photo by Don Hankins, attribution licence]