Harbin residents spent an estimated 1.29 million yuan ($193,000) on online purchases during the first half of 2016, an increase of 4.1 percent compared to the same period last year, according to a survey by the Harbin investigation team of the National Bureau of Statistics.

The estimate was based on a survey of 200 Harbin citizens, each of which was asked a number of questions about their online shopping habits.

In addition to the increase in online purchases this year, the survey also underlined the extraordinary dominance of people aged between 20 and 39 in the online marketplace. People in this age group accounted for 76 percent of the total online shoppers in Harbin, and this figure is also 5.2 percentage points higher than the same period last year.

People under 20 years old represented just 0.5 percent of Harbin’s e-commerce buyers, while over-40s accounted for 23.5 percent.

The reason for this dominance of people born in the 80s and 90s is that under-20s tend to have lower disposable incomes, while older people in China often prefer not to use computers or mobile phones to make purchases.

Meanwhile, the survey also showed that online shoppers tend to have higher academic degrees, with 62.8 percent having a bachelor’s degree, a rise of 3.8 percentage points on last year.

Those educated to master’s degree level accounted for 18.6 percent of online shoppers, a year-on-year increase of 1.1 percentage points.

Online shoppers are also more likely to be female, with women accounting for 57.9 percent of Harbin’s e-commerce buyers.

Commodities that have become more popular among online shoppers this year include food, transport tickets, accommodation, beverages, cigarettes and wine.

Women have this year tended to spend more on clothes and home textiles, as opposed to last year when daily supplies were more popular. Men, meanwhile, have shifted from spending money on cell phones to buying phone cards and credit for online video games.

According to the survey, what worries online purchasers most is the leaking of personal information, the lack of guarantees for after-sales service, and the insecurity of online payment systems.