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In 2010, Internet and other e-commerce sales transactions averaged 13% of total turnover in countries for which data are available. Ireland, Norway and the Czech Republic reported the largest shares. In Ireland the share of e-commerce sales is almost twice the average.
Use of the Internet to sell goods or services varies across countries. In all OECD countries the share of business-to-business (B2B) transactions exceeds business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions. On average, over 35% of all businesses (with ten or more employees) use the Internet for purchasing and about 18% for selling goods or services.
In Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Norway and Sweden, over half of all businesses purchase via the Internet. For sales of goods or services via the Internet, the leaders are New Zealand, Israel, Norway, Australia and Switzerland, with approximately one-half to one-third of all businesses doing so.
Security concerns remain an important impediment to e-commerce. The growth of broadband has created a greater need for users to protect their security and privacy actively in the online environment. Both individual users and businesses report that computer viruses are the - "malware" they encounter the most.
The Slovak Republic, Hungary, Italy and Estonia reported the largest shares of Internet users encountering viruses. For businesses, incidents include: destruction or corruption of data due to hardware or software failures and unavailability of information and communication technology (ICT) services following attacks from outside, e.g. denial of -service attack; destruction or corruption of data due to infection or malicious software or unauthorised access; and disclosure of confidential data due to intrusion or phishing. The countries reporting the most incidents were Japan, Portugal, Greece, Denmark and Finland.
Definitions
In 2009, OECD member countries reviewed the OECD definition of e-commerce, which dated from 2001.
The 2009 OECD definition of e-commerce is: "An e-commerce transaction is the sale or purchase of goods or services, conducted over computer networks by methods specifically designed for the purpose of receiving or placing of orders. The goods or services are ordered by those methods, but the payment and the ultimate delivery of the goods or services do not have to be conducted online. An e-commerce tran-saction can be between enterprises, households, -individuals, governments, and other public or private organisations. To be included are orders made over the web, extranet or electronic data interchange. The type is defined by the method of placing the order. To be excluded are orders made by telephone calls, -facsimile or manually typed e-mail."
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Measurability
While Internet security is a challenging area to measure, differences among countries can highlight progress in working towards a culture of security. An important statistical challenge in terms of measurement is the fact that questions about security incidents encountered are problematic. There is significant anecdotal evidence that businesses will either not answer such questions or will understate the extent of any problems.
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| Indicator in PDF |
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| Firms' turnover from e-commerce, 2010 |
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| Internet selling and purchasing for total industry, 2010 |
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| Businesses and individuals experiencing ICT security incidents, 2010 |
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