Businesses still have fears over e-commerce

Although entrepreneurs are concerned about security and privacy when doing business via the Internet they also believe that there are many benefits to be gained through the use of e-commerce.

This was one of the findings of a business survey undertaken recently by Misco and KPMG entitled ‘e-Government Services’ with a view to gauging perceptions of government services and the provision of certain services mainly via Internet. The study also explores the likelihood of usage of government services via Internet, the portal concept, the type of preferred information seeking approach and related issues.

The survey found that although most businesses use the Internet for e-mail and research rather than banking or e-purchase, the interest is there, with 60 per cent of non-users saying they would consider it, especially larger companies.

In the survey sample, just 23.4 per cent of businesses using the internet claim to be currently using it to conduct financial transactions.

The major reason for not using the internet for financial transactions is fear over security (57.4 per cent). A further 31.5 per cent said they believed there was no use for it.

More than half the internet users interviewed (53.1 per cent) did not complete any business transactions in the past year. A total of 20.1 per cent said they used the internet to make a business-related transaction 20 times, 11.5 per cent stated they used it 21 – 100 times. Just 7.4 per cent said they used it more than 100 times.

The survey found that most businesses participating in the survey – 85.2 per cent - use a computer in their organisation. In fact, it was only among the smaller companies that use of the computer proved to be less than 100 per cent.

Approximately four of five who use computers in their business (82.2 per cent) use the internet, with usage increasing by employment size.

From those who use the internet, 69.7 per cent claim to have a cable modem or ADSL connection. Most – 87.4 per cent - expressed satisfaction with the speed of the service they had.

Miriam Dunn reporting