Policy and environmental issues are also unimportant obstacles for doing business online. Good
legal protection together with clear taxation and business laws, e.g., the long distance distribution
law which covers traditional catalog sellers as well as online retailers are viewed by the
respondents as drivers rather than barriers for doing business online in Germany.
TABLE 13 Barriers/Difficulties to Doing Business on the Internet
:
Banking/
Manufacturing
a
Wholesale/Retail
Distribution
a
Insurance
a
Total
a
Percent indicating it as a
significant obstacle
GER
Global
b
GER
Global
b
GER
Global
b
GER
Global
b
Need for face to face
customer interaction
23.0
31.5
8.8
34.2
11.6
40.1
11.9
33.8
Concern about privacy of data
or security issues
20.9
47.1
21.5
40.4
65.1
62.0
24.9
44.2
Customers do not use the
technology 26.4
30.3
24.3
33.1
18.0
23.2
24.2
31.4
Finding staff with e commerce
expertise
28.2 23.8 47.7 28.8 13,5 19.9 41.2 26.5
Prevalence of credit card use
in the country
17.3
22.4
23.0
19.9
19.7
15.4
21.6
20.3
Costs of implementing an e
commerce site
22.5
32.6
37.2
34.9
14.0
27.6
32.3
33.6
Making needed organizational
changes
26.9 23.8 34.2 24.8 9.3 17.5 30.7 23.9
Level of ability to use the
Internet as part of business
14.6
28.0
14.1
23.7
14.7
20.8
14.3
24.8
Cost of internet access
4.6
13.5
0.0
16.3
8.8
12.7
1.6
15.1
Business laws do not support
e commerce
17.0 27.6 0.0 22.6 21.6 23.3 5.2 24.2
Taxation of Internet sales
7.0
14.0
0.0
18.8
1.2
8.2
1.5
16.5
Inadequate legal protection for
Internet purchases
13.3
37.3
22.2
33.6
26.2
26.0
20.8
34.1
Notes:
a
Responses were weighted based on the total number of establishments by employee size within the sector for each
country.
b
Consists of weighted survey responses in 10 countries combined: United States, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, France,
Denmark, Singapore, Taiwan, China and Japan.
Source: CRITO Global E Commerce Survey, 2002
Aside from the difficulties in finding experienced staff and the expensive costs of e commerce
sites, organizational changes are the most significant impeding factors hindering the fast
diffusion of e commerce in Germany (Figure 2). Nevertheless, with some exceptions, German
establishments deal with lower barriers in comparison to the global sample. However, without e
commerce experts, other obstacles such as making organizational changes remain unsolved
problems hampering the process of e commerce diffusion and usage. Moreover, without IT
know how, investments in more sophisticated and difficult to implement e commerce solutions
cannot be realized, hampering further development. Even after the dot.com bubble burst, the
limited availability of IT personnel is the most serious bottle neck today and in the near future
for German industry.
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