Slovenian sales on the internet

Shopping relaxes. This has long been recognized by medical therapists and people, and the Internet is one of the technological achievements that allows you to relax right from the comfort of your home. On the information highway, you can buy everything from basic necessities to prestigious products such as cars and houses.

In between, there is a wide range of offers that satisfy every customer. And how successful are companies in the world and in our country selling online? According to the American Forrester Research Institute, most people across the ocean buy computer software and hardware, followed by the sale of books and music records and flowers, gifts of all kinds, tickets (air, rail, bus…) and clothes. Other branches of the retail offer are slowly but steadily “attacking” human laziness – the time-consuming search for shops – and the unstoppable need to shop. In Europe, between six and seven million people have home access to the Internet, and on average Scandinavian countries have the highest number of connections. Experts predict that there will be six to seven times as many domestic Internet users in Europe by 2001, by which time Americans will have the upper hand on the Internet. In the USA, Amazon Books is the most well-known publisher in terms of both supply and sales. The daily sales of this publishing giant are hovering around 200,000$, with losses estimated at 42,000$ per day. And most importantly, after several years of pioneering activities on the Internet, electronic sales only paid off for them last year. In the US, they are increasingly realizing that the advantage over the competition directly increases proportionally with the benefit of the offer for the pampered and lazy customer.

And how is it with us? It is no secret that e-commerce in Slovenia is still in its infancy. It is necessary to separate the fact what electronic sales and what the presentation of a company with a desire to expand sales is. There are, of course, inappropriately more of the latter. There are several reasons why this is the case, but more important is how satisfied those companies are with those who are breaking new ground in e-commerce in our country. In Europe alone, sales of CDs and books bring in about $ 350 million a year.

The most visible virtual shops are the already mentioned Rec Rec music store and the Mladinska knjiga publishing house. In Rec Rec (www.nika.si/recrec/) they receive from ten to fifteen orders per week, and the records are delivered to your desired address. If the products you are looking for are not in stock, they will inform you by letter or e-mail when you are expected to receive the CD. But there is no shortage of problems with the publishing house. Even if the plates are no longer in stock or in the sales catalog, they must not be deleted from the website, as the tax inspection requires a full overview of the sale. Even though e-shoppers are rare at this time they are vulnerable to unregulated Slovenian regulations on e-commerce and this can make their shopping zeal disappear. And that’s before they get a good taste of the sweetness of the convenience of online shopping. In contrast to the RecRec CD store, where they are not overly concerned about sales, they are less satisfied in the largest Slovenian online bookstore Mladinska knjiga (www.mkz-lj.si/). In less than a year, for as long as they are active on the World Wide Web, the number of visits to the site is increasing (now around a thousand a month), but sales have not yet started as they would like. Electronic sales amount to up to three books a day, and the desired products are shipped by mail within 24 hours.