E-Commerce

E-Business

Although Internet access in Poland is increasing, E-Commerce seems to be decreasing. As of this past March, there are only 800 Internet shops operating in Poland, which is a decrease of 50 from the prior 6 months. An organization called I-Metria measured E-Commerce and found some interesting facts from the sample. It is noted that books and other publications are the most-frequently purchased items, available at 30% of e-shops. Multimedia came in second at 18% of stores offering such items, and software came in third at 15.5%. I-Metria also notes that nearly 84% percent of Internet shops offer mail order as the main form of payment. They also state that bank transfers are used in more than 40% of e-shops, and credit cards at 28%. (1)

The Polish Market Review (2) created and received the results of a survey outlining E-Commerce in Poland. Of the entities surveyed the results indicate that certain facts such as:
· 80% of firms have Internet access
· 50% of the firms have some type of Internet access on at least half of their computers
· 63% of computers in the firms have access to the Internet
· The larger the revenues and company size the more Internet access
· Only 7.7% of respondents make purchases online
· The vast majority of smaller and medium firms, and individuals do not buy any items online.
· An additional 15.3% of Internet users announced their intention to purchase items online

An analysis performed by TNS Interactive (3) in Poland claims the following of E-Commerce in Poland (specifically of individual users):
· 18% (almost 7 million people) of the total population of Poland are Internet users
· Most popular place to use the Internet to purchase items - Home
· 1% of the total population are online shoppers
· 7% of Internet users are online shoppers
· Main reason for not buying online - "You don't know what you will get"
· Why companies do not sell via the Internet:

________________________

________________________ Ecommerce Internet Surveys & Online Market Research

As for B2B transactions, firms are utilizing the Internet to facilitate communications and exchange information, as opposed to making purchases. Within one year, approximately 81%, or 779,000 businesses will have their own website. And firms already employing Internet activities to facilitate business believe that it is necessary to continue operations on the Internet. This is not a notion without barriers however, as "the most important area of change needs to be an increase in manager's awareness of the potential of these technologies. They still have very limited knowledge in this area, and is probably one of the main obstacles to swifter development of B2B E-Commerce in Poland." (4)

Industries whom do not believe the Internet is a possibility to facilitate business include Construction and Industrial Processing.

E-Government

The government in Poland is gearing up for accession to the European Union. The public administration is developing and evolving to incorporate new services and management techniques using the benefits of E-Government. Central and local authorities alike are trying to accelerate the development of an information society. Local authorities and administration have changed a lot over the past five years or so, as accession to the EU has refocused their objectives. Central authorities and administration have been preparing for EU accession for many years now, and have been witness to trends that parallel their efforts. Promotion of technology has given way to a trend where a growing number of applications and systems are being implemented in government offices. As noted by The Warsaw Post (No. 21 [709]), "more than half of Poland's communes and almost all of its counties already have their own websites and services, some of which are very well done and even are capable of competing with business solutions." Interest in technology is also high among cities. Local government officials are starting to understand that traditional techniques no longer provide satisfactory resources. Throughout many industries, document archiving and circulation is occurring, as new workflow systems are being implemented. Also pushing E-Government is an upcoming law that will mandate posting all public information.

The main initiatives include implementing electronic resources in the following areas (5):
· Income taxes: Declaration, notification, or assessment
· Job search services by labor forces
· Social Security contributions
· Unemployment benefits
· Child allowances
· Medical costs
· Student grants
· Personal documents (Passports and licenses)
· Car registration (New, used and imported cars)
· Application for building permission
· Declarations to the police
· Access to public libraries
· Birth and marriage certificates: Request and delivery
· Announcement of moving
· Health-related services
· Social contribution for employees
· Corporate taxes
· VAT: Declaration and notifications
· Registration of a new company
· Customs declarations
· Environmental permits
· Public procurement

The local authority and administration is also preparing for a law enabling electronic signatures. Robert Szymczak, a representative of the Cities on Internet Association, states that, "we are expecting a real revolution spurred by the use of e-signatures and e-documents in relations between offices and citizens. One of the critical plans we hope to begin work on - and this is a task for both the central administration and local governments - is a project guaranteeing citizen access to public information through terminals referred to as 'information ATMs.' I think 3,000 terminals should be installed nation-wide." (6) It is clear that an initiative of this magnitude would change the landscape of IT development. As for implementing such a solution, officials believe that the country is not far behind in development. Statistics exhibit growth in number of computers per capita. Entities such as schools, Internet cafes, and many small municipalities reinforce this notion. One area that has to be built upon, however, is content. This will occur naturally though as more entities go online.

E-Signatures

By June of 2002, the Polish Ministry of Economy drafted regulations for an electronic signatures act. Although The Polish Chamber of Information Technology and Telecommunications disputed these regulations because of "legal loopholes" such as "non-constitutional regulations that do not comply with EU regulations," (7) the implementation of E-signatures commenced on August 16, 2002. Companies must use special devices (code readers) that use complex algorithms to process and secure e-signatures. The recipient of the signature must also have a qualified and certified certificate, or public key, to validate signatures.

As for prospective usage, "at the beginning of 2002, telecoms experts estimated that electronic signatures would become widely used, especially among private individuals, in about three years, when code readers become cheaper and the number of computer owners increases." (8)

E-Voting

The first test of e-voting in Poland will take place this year with the 2002 elections. As mentioned by European news source, EuropeMedia.Net, "new technologies will have an unprecedented role to play in this year's local elections in Poland with the State Electoral Commission (PKW) treating the 2002 polls as a test of the potential for further computerization of voting procedures. Under the new approach a computer system will start collecting some data in the run-up to the elections, including registration details of electoral committees and candidates. More than 2,500 polling stations, or constituency electoral commissions (10% of the total) will be provided with computers and Internet access. The results from the ballot papers will be entered into the system and transmitted by dial-up connection directly to the server at the National Electoral Office. The data transfer will be secured using digital signatures, certificates for which have been issued by the Field Data Bank in Kielce, PL. Data from other constituency commissions will be submitted to the Territorial Commissions (counting stations) as normal and entered into the "electoral system" at that level. The result already collected, will be publicized on an ongoing basis, for instance via websites." (9)

SOURCES

Top of page