Development of online shopping within B2C e-commerce in the Visegrad Four countries

Abstract

Online shopping has become an increasingly common way of shopping in recent years. The main goal of the paper was to evaluate and compare the development of online shopping in the Visegrad Four countries (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary). The paper outlines the theoretical basis of online shopping concept, describes the current situation of online shopping in the EU market and the main types of goods and services purchased through the Internet. Based on data from the Eurostat database, the paper outlines the development of online shopping in the years 2011 to 2019, the share of online purchases in the EU market and online purchases of goods and services within the V4 countries for the given years. We found that in all countries, an increasing trend of online shopping was recorded over the period under review, with the largest increase in the Czech Republic. There was also a growing share of online purchases from retailers in other EU countries, with the largest increase recorded in Hungary. With regard to online purchases of services, year-on-year decline over the period of two years has been recorded in Slovakia.