Survey shock: Nearly half of staff confess to shopping online while working

The data revealed 47 per cent of Australians were guilty of online shopping or browsing at work. Picture / Getty Images

New research has found workers are indulging in a guilty habit at an unprecedented rate with nearly half heading online to shop during business hours.

The data, from comparison site finder.com.au, revealed 47 per cent of Australians were guilty of online shopping or browsing at work - this would be equivalent to about 1.3 million Kiwis if the results were the same here.

And this lost productivity adds up — apparently, the habit costs Australian businesses A$603 million ($635m) in wages every single week — or A31.3 billion annually.

In 2017, the annual figure was A$23.8b — so it seems the online shopping addiction is only getting more and more widespread.

In fact, the research found the average worker spent 108 minutes shopping online every week, with an extra 2.5 million people now owning up to the habit, compared with the previous year.

Female workers were slightly more likely to shop on the clock, with 36 per cent of women surveyed admitting to the practice, compared with 30 per cent of men.

Tasmania is the most productive state with 43 per cent of workers stating they don't shop online while at work.

This compares to 36 per cent of Queenslanders and South Australians, 33 per cent of Victorians and 30 per cent of New South Welshmen and Western Australians.

And more than one-third of Australians spend up to two hours shopping online every week.

Finder.com.au money expert Bessie Hassan said the findings were not surprising.

"Most Aussies spend [the] majority of their day in front of a computer," she explained.

"When boredom strikes, or if you've hit a wall, it's easy to deviate from your day-to-day work and stumble on to an online shopping site.

"If you're receiving sales emails from your favourite online retailer it can be tempting to click off on to the website and get lost down the rabbit hole that is online shopping."

But Hassan warned that when the hours were added up, productivity could be hindered.

"Perhaps the reason so many Aussies are adopting this bad browsing habit is because work and home life are becoming more and more entwined," she said.

"Everyone's guilty of checking their work emails at home, so it doesn't feel out of place to jump online and look for new winter boots while at work.

"If you don't think you can resist the pull of an online sale, try to refrain from checking your personal emails at work. That way you'll avoid the email newsletter discounts and won't be tempted."