Use of e-commerce in Small and Medium Size Enterprises: An Application in Ankara

A great deal of efficiency and productivity increase has been achieved in the production process through the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in recent years. These developments have created remarkable opportunities for the small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) whose advertising and marketing budgets are relatively limited. A comprehensive survey and interviews are carried out with a sample of SMEs in OSTIM and Sincan Industrial Districts in Ankara in order to find out the present use of e-commerce in the SMEs, its perceived advantages, potential problems and the future expectations. The ordered logit models are estimated to investigate the factors affecting the use of e-commerce in the firms, potential advantages of e-commerce use and the main obstacles in implementing the ICTs. The results reveal that the firms are aware of the fact that e-commerce would increase the speed of business, lower the cost of production, give competitive advantage, enable to reach the customers easily and expand the markets and that B2B and B2C e-commerce and the use of ICTs are more common in relatively bigger firms (in terms of capital, sales revenue and employment). The main reasons why the SMEs are not able to use ICTs are found as the lack of information and specialized personnel, security and legal framework.