The accession countries are the European Union’s newest members and until now have received little analyst attention. A deeper understanding of local cultures is important. For example, online shopping in Cyprus fails to appeal to those who like haggling. Some accession countries are just discovering the ‘shopping mall’ experience and prefer it to online shopping. internet and credit card penetration are low. At the same time it is naïve to assume that the region as a whole is unsophisticated in its online habits while, for example, Estonia has high online banking usage and advanced e-government. Here is a brief outline of online retailing in selected accession countries:
- Bulgaria: Credit card penetration is limited as is confidence in the banking system. Three quarters of all retail is through small privately-owned shops. Shopping from foreign sites is unattractive because of the country’s low purchasing power. Retail websites include books.bg (books), margaritaflowers.com (flowers) and get.bg (electronics).
- Cyprus: Online shopping remains small, partly as a result of the residential proximity to most shops and working hours not making shopping inconvenient for professionals. The main attraction of online shopping is for goods not available on the island. Key sites include mathisis.com (books), redrose.com (flowers) and netdrinks.com (grocery).
- Hungary: Most online purchases are paid for on delivery and there is limited online banking. Retail sites include viragneked.hu (flowers), butoruzlet.hu (furniture), hazipatika.hu (health) and fokuszonline.hu (books).
- Latvia: Credit card penetration is very low in Latvia, though growing. Cash on delivery is a popular form of payment, making online sales more convenient for local merchants than international chains. Retailers include musicshop.lv (music), shop24.lv (electronics) and enaplus.com (grocery).
- Poland: Tough economic conditions have shut down many businesses particularly those without a major financial backer. Poland has a large relatively large population but online access is limited - it is still expensive due to a lack of competition. Online shops include ws.pl (books), officedepot.com.pl (office goods) and emarket.pl (electronics). Online grocery is advanced for the region, though deliveries are generally restricted to the more populated areas. Grocery websites include leclerc.com, bomi.pl, mojesklepy.com and dodomku.pl.
- Romania: The country has a low level of credit card ownership, limited online banking and no legislation securing online transactions. Most payment is offline for orders placed online. Indeed key websites have only started accepting credit cards recently. Shops include emania.ro (electronics and grocery, free delivery), domo.ro (electronics) and megamarket.ro (grocery).
- Turkey: Turkey would become one of the largest markets in Europe though its online pentration is low. Web shops include hepsiburada.com (electronics, backed by media group Dogan who also own leading ISP kolay.net), ideefixe.com (books) and gima.com.tr (grocery).
Eastern Europe Links:
Quelle: europemedia
