Over a quarter of Irish online shoppers purchased on China’s online shopping platforms in 2015 according to a recent research by Paypal.

About 1.9 million Irish online shoppers bought cross–border products online accounting for 86% of Irish total online shoppers. Over three-fourths of online buyers shopped on British shopping websites, 38% shopped on American sites, and 26% in China’s shopping platforms.

The Irish were the most active cross-border online shoppers among 29 countries surveyed according to PayPal. Due to the lack of online shopping channels and high prices, more than three-fourths Irish online shoppers shopped cross-border products from other countries to gain affordable and high-quality products. And 73% made online cross-border purchase to buy products they couldn’t buy in Ireland.

26% Irish online buyers shopped from China’s online shopping websites mainly due to low prices and localized shopping experience. China’s retailers and online shopping websites with prices displayed in Euros are attractive to the Irish shoppers although domestic shopping websites are still the top choice among the Irish people.

35% China’s online shoppers bought cross-border goods in 2015 compared to 26% in 2014 according to PayPal. Penetration rate of cross-border online shoppers in second-tier cities was lower than that of first-tier cities while the average spend and shopping frequencies were quite close. Nearly 88% of the second-tier city consumers will buy cross-border goods online according to Nielsen.

Also read: China Retail V.S. Online Shopping 2015

About 64,000 mainland Chinese travelers went to UK in the second quarter of 2015, according to the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom.

UK has made much effort to attract Chinese tourists and Chinese tourists to Britain grew by 33% YoY in Q2 2015. However, although RMB appreciated against GBP, Chinese tourists spending in UK fell by 6% to 151 million pounds (about 1.48 billion yuan).

Chinese outbound visitors are expected to exceed more than 120 million this year. The top five outbound destinations for Chinese tourists all are Asian countries and regions. France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany are among the top ten travel destinations for Chinese.

UK received 7.4 million tourists from mainland Europe in Q2 2015, 1 million from the United States and 152,000 from India.

Also read: China Hotel Search Behavior Overview 2015