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Recognition of business risks when purchasing goods on the Internet using GIS: experience from Slovakia

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Abstract

For operators of Internet shops and their investors on the one hand, and suppliers on the other hand, knowledge of the consumer market is becoming critical in terms of the risk of non-payment for purchased goods, as most small e-shops maintain their stocks according to current demand. The aim of this paper is to identify customers who come from different districts of Slovakia and display a certain type of consumer behavior regarding the risk connected with willingness to pay for goods purchased via the Internet. To solve this problem we used data from a specialized e-retailer and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a Decision Support System generator for constructing maps of consumers to investigate the operation of an e-shop. In the article, we used data from the years 2012–2015 concerning 489 buyers, including their addresses and other geographical data about the consumers and their purchases, and integrated them into the GIS environment. Subsequently, the data were analyzed and documented by means of GIS and maps of consumers were generated. The result of this study is to show that GIS can play a significant role in the decision-making process of e-shops in support of a manager’s experience. The geographical results were evaluated statistically in order to offer a better information capability.

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Fig. 1

Source: Zentes et al [31]. Strategic Retail Management. GABLER, p. 76

Fig. 2

Source: authors’ own research

Fig. 3

Source: authors’ own research

Fig. 4

Source: authors’ own research

Fig. 5

Source: authors’ own research

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Notes

  1. http://www.zive.sk/clanok/69419/pocet-e-shopov-na-slovensku-presiahol-7-tisic.

  2. http://onas.heureka.sk/pre-media/tlacove-spravy/article/pocet-e-shopov-na-slovensku-presiahol-8000-10366, http://asociaciaeshopov.sk/o-nas.

  3. https://www.shoptet.cz/tiskove-zpravy/vysledky-e-commerce-za-rok-2015---obliba-nakupovani-pres-internet-stale-stoupa-/.

  4. https://www.ecommerce-europe.eu/news-item/eastern-europe-an-upcoming-e-commerce-market/.

  5. Considering the fact that there is no district in Slovakia with more than 85% of the population in rural municipalities, this type of rural district was not defined in the methodology.

  6. The number of purchases was, as a result of repeated purchases by the same customers, replaced by the number of shoppers. In the original model with the independent variable of the number of purchases the repeated purchases of the same customers proved to be significant, which concealed the effect of socioeconomic variables on buying behavior.

  7. The variable share of university graduates in the total population aged over 15 has been excluded from the resulting regression model since it does not increase the share of variability of the dependent variable explained by the model.

  8. The coefficient of determination can be artificially increased by a higher number of variables that enter into the analysis. Considering the number of cases (79 districts of Slovakia), three independent variables seems to be an ideal number. Therefore, in this case, the adjusted coefficient of determination (Adjusted R Square) differs only slightly from the normal coefficient of determination; its value is 0.586.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract No. APVV-16-0232 and the project VEGA 1/0282/15 Instruments of Marketing Policy in New Business Models Orientated at Creating Multiple Value for Customer under the Conditions of Sustainable Development. The authors are grateful to acknowledge the support received from the students’ grant projects titled “Socio-economic structures and determinants of the contemporary landscape: analysis and interpretation of geographic reality” funded by the Palacký University Internal Grant Agency (IGA_PrF_2017_021).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Economics in Bratislava, Faculty of Trade, Departement of Marketing, Dolnozemská cesta 1, 85101, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Pavol Kita

  2. Palacký University in Olomouc, Faculty of Science, Deparment of Geography, 17. listopadu 12, 771 46, Olomouc, Czechia

    Zdenek Szczyrba, David Fiedor & Ales Letal

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  1. Pavol Kita
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Correspondence to Pavol Kita.

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Kita, P., Szczyrba, Z., Fiedor, D. et al. Recognition of business risks when purchasing goods on the Internet using GIS: experience from Slovakia. Electron Commer Res 18, 647–663 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-017-9276-5

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