SINGAPORE - Singaporeans are South-east Asia's top online shoppers, according to a study by global payments technology company Visa.

The study shows that 26 per cent of Singaporeans shop online at least once a week, highest in the region and 50 per cent of Singaporeans would do all their shopping online if possible.

The findings in the Visa Consumer Payment Attitudes Study 2014 also show that more than half of the 500 Singaporeans surveyed (58 per cent) shop online at least once a month.

The age group that shops most frequently online is between 25 and 44 years old.

The study surveyed 2,000 consumers in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.

The survey also shows that 30 per cent of Singaporeans who shop online use their mobiles to make purchases at least once a week.

"Online shopping continues to grow in popularity in Singapore with 19 per cent year-on-year growth in eCommerce transactions performed by Singaporean Visa cardholders," said Visa Country Manager for Singapore and Brunei Ooi Huey Tyng.

"In comparison, domestic face-to-face Visa transactions for October grew at 6 per cent year-on-year.

"There is a growing trend of consumers spending more time and money shopping online. As technology evolves, we see the blurring of lines between shopping at a retail store and online," she said.

"Fueled by this shift in behavior by consumers, we see more merchants developing apps and expanding their businesses to online platforms. This helps them to drive more business and also provides a better shopping experience for their targeted consumers," added Ms Ooi.

Consumers prefer to shop online due to a number of reasons. According to the survey, 38 per cent of Singaporeans cite convenience as one of the factors when choosing to shop online. Other reasons for shopping online were because of cheaper prices and direct delivery.

Travel is the most popular category where Singaporeans make purchases online. The survey indicated that more than 51 per cent of the respondents bought all their flight tickets online and 46 per cent bought all their travel accommodation online.

The next popular categories that Singaporeans make their entire purchases online are concert or sporting tickets and games.

Survey findings also showed that the average cost of the most expensive item that Singaporeans have purchased online is S$2,887.