Flash Eurobarometer 439 (The Use of Online Marketplaces and Search Engines by SMEs)

Use of online marketplaces and search engines by small and medium enterprises.<br>Topics: attitude towards selected statements on online marketplaces: available information about customer behaviour and preferences is useful for development and improvement of products and services, data about customers are sufficient for company’s purposes, awareness about which data about the company are being collected by marketplace and use of the data, easy transfer of key commercial data from one marketplace to another; attitude towards the following statements with regard to the terms and conditions of online marketplaces: are clear in general, can be influenced according to own interests, possibility to switch to different marketplace in case of unfavourable changes to existing terms and conditions, reliable dispute solution system; attitude towards selected statements about search engines: position in search results has significant impact on sales, use of search engine optimization techniques, approval to allow changes in order of search results according to search engine’s commercial interests, existence of reliable dispute resolution system; attitude towards selected statements on review or rating systems: reviews have significant impact on sales, user reviews are genuine, possibility to report and remove false reviews.

Demography: information about the company: number of employees, year of company establishment; total turnover in 2015; percentage of the company’s turnover in 2015 coming from sales in: own country, other EU countries, countries outside the EU; direct selling to: final consumers, other companies, public administration; frequency of selling products or services on the internet; frequency of selling products or services on the internet via: company’s commercial website, online marketplaces, search engines.

Additionally coded was: respondent ID; country; NACE-Code; weighting factor.