Annals of the University of Oradea: Economic Science (Jul 2020)
PERCEIVED BARRIERS TO E-COMMERCE IN ROMANIA – A CONSUMERS PERSPECTIVE
Abstract
The e-commerce has changed the way companies conduct business in Romania, leading to lower costs and greater expansion possibilities. The Romanian e-commerce market is constantly growing and exceeded 4.3 billion Euros in 2019. There are several types of e-commerce, according to the nature and dynamics of the transactional relationships, but this paper refers to the most common and relevant for the end consumer: the business to consumer (B2C) e-commerce activities. The purpose of this paper is to present the major barriers to B2C e-commerce adoption perceived by Romanian consumers, from social, behavioural, educational and economic perspectives. There is still a large gap between Romania and the other European Union countries regarding the adoption of e-commerce. Even though the Romanian e-commerce market registers a double-digit yearly increase, it has not yet reached its maturity level, as only 23% of the Romanians made at least one online purchase in 2019, compared to 63% of all the European Union citizens. The most significant barriers to e-commerce adoption in Romania are social and behavioural, followed by educational and financial. 43% of the Romanian population didn’t shop online due to the need for human interaction when shopping, lack of trust or force of habit, compared to 23% of the Europeans. 7% of the Romanians consider themselves not skilled enough to shop online and 5% did not engage in e-commerce activities because they do not possess a payment card, although most of online shops accept cash on delivery as a payment method. Moreover, 80% of the Romanian buyers prefer it instead of card payment. From the managerial point of view, understanding the major perceived barriers the Romanian consumers face when purchasing online is an important endeavour of the e-commerce companies. Consequently, they can adjust the business models, promotional activities and advertising efforts to help consumers overcome their perceived barriers to e-commerce and therefore, expand their clients’ base.
