E-commerce in Slovakia: situation in recent years and future trends.

• Author: Papulova, Zuzana
• Position: Report

1. INTRODUCTION

   E-commerce is used for the possibility of mediation and security services for businesses and ordinary consumers, and the supply of industrial and consumable items through websites on the Internet. Practically, this means that the firm has set up a home web site on the Internet; it provides the information to make contact and use the internet to sell their goods. To define e-commerce we can say that it is the process of buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products, services, or information via computer networks, including Internet. (Turban, King, Viehland, Lee, 2006)

   E-commerce has grown into a huge industry world widely. It has many advantages for businesses as well as for customers, therefore more development of this form of commerce can be assumed. For businesses it has certain number of advantages, among them we can mention e.g. reduction of labor costs, storage costs and the amount of stored products, possibility of contact with customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, easier and faster reaction to events in the market. Customers on the other hand, have benefits as well, online shopping saves time, many times the prices at e-shops are lower than in the street shops, customers can quickly compare prices, shopping can be realized from the comfort of their homes, the products are delivered to their home, sometimes e-shops even offer free shipping.

   Like all forms of commerce also e-commerce has its own risks. In Slovakia Internet market we still noticed some problems like low Internet literacy, especially among older people, fear of loss of privacy and personal data, fear of abuse payment details, risks of non-delivery of goods ordered and paid and lack of legislation. (E-shopy, 2010)

2. E-COMMERCE IN SLOVAKIA

   2.1 Brief history of e-commerce in Slovakia

   The first Slovak e-commerce projects were dated between the end of 90thies and the beginning of the new millennium. The pioneer among the e-shops was Dunaj.sk (it started with books, later it added music, perfumes, films, tours and other products). At the beginning the Slovak internet market was growing very slowly and only a few percent of population had confidence in online shopping.

   Later, after year 2000 successful e-shops were born, like the online bookstore Martinus.sk. It was founded in 2001, it has experienced rapid growth and in recent years it is regularly placed on the highest positions in ratings of popularity. In 2003 was found other e-shop--Hej.sk that offers all categories of possible goods, from household appliances, audio / video, up to the perfumes, products for household and garden. Development of E-commerce in Slovakia has been supported by the media showing various stories of successful Slovak Internet companies. Many people are searching for quick profits are establishing e-shops. Unfortunately, many of these projects are ending within the three years. (Zuffa and Hlubina, 2008)

   2.2 Current situation

   Online shopping has grown continuously for the last four or five years in Slovakia (Dvorsky, 2010). Even a world economic crisis did not cause a reduction of Slovak's interest in online shopping. On the contrary, crisis had an impact on Internet users in the form of an increase in the number of items purchased on the Internet--mainly due to lower prices offered on Internet portals (Andrejuvova, 2008).

   According Economist Intelligence Unit data Slovakia ranks in the top half of European countries in terms of companies and citizens using different types of e-business and e-government services, especially B2B and B2C electronic commerce is increasingly common among Slovaks. (Economist Intelligence Unit data, 2010)

   To confirm the popularity of e-commerce, we should mention, that online shops are part of various ranking and some of them received prestigious Slovak awards e.g.:

   * Start-up Entrepreneur of the Year 2010: Alexander Gramblicka (co-owner of e-shop InterStore.sk)

   * Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year 2009: Tana Kyselova (e-shop Pelikan.sk)

   * Top 5...