The e-commerce in Macedonia. Analysis of current state, barriers and developing potential based on 10 companies operating in Macedonia

Only recently, Macedonia has adopted e-commerce and that in only small number of companies and sectors. Due to the lack of infrastructure, e-literacy and development, this report focuses on analyzing the developing potential, starting from the barriers and current state of the e-commerce in Macedonia. Knowing the fact that Macedonia has only recently started performing e-commerce activities in the market, there are endless number of possibilities to direct the development of e-commerce. This paper helps to direct the development of the e-commerce through in-depth analysis of all the stakeholders and aspects that have a touching points. To better understand the as-is state in Macedonia, we did interviews with the managers of the most up-to-date and comprehensive top 10 e-commerce companies in Macedonia today, thereafter we analyzed the companies using SWOT, Business Model Canvas and measuring KPIs as well as detailed analysis of their e-commerce sector. Taking advantage of the evolving world of opportunities offered by e-commerce, which is dramatically altering the way business is conducted and driving major shifts in the global economy, it is a known fact that not all the countries have the same development of this modern era shopping style. The defining characteristic of these companies are to analyze if they are profitable, sustainable, efficient, and innovative. If they are working in an established business, chances are the firm’s e-commerce capabilities and Web presence are important factors for its success. Knowing that e-commerce is not only about business and technology, the third component of the equation for understanding e-commerce is the society. E-commerce and Internet Technologies have important social consequences that if companies ignore this, they are prone to a threat of danger. E-commerce has challenged our concepts of privacy, intellectual property, and even our ideas about national sovereignty and governance, thus we took a closer look into this phenomenon and did a thorough analysis on the demographic and behavioral characteristics of the population in Macedonia, where from we deducted crucial information of what next step is the most suitable for the e-commerce and which are the obstacles holding back e-commerce for such a long time while other countries have blooming and well-functioning e-commerce.