EVALUATION AND COMPARISON OF SELLING TERMS IN INTERNATIONAL E-COMMERCE

Abstract

The article focuses on the complex and economic evaluation and comparison of selling terms provided by the international on-line sellers. Analysis of scientific literature on electronic commerce (e-commerce) published by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Harvard University Press, Springer, M. E. Sharpe, Routledge, etc. shows that 15% of the authors analyse only selling terms. Most of these authors investigate selling terms from an economic point of view and others, only about 1, 5 %, from a legal point of view. The authors that analyse selling terms give the same attention to the international and national issues, but more attention to the United States of America than to the European Union issues. So, the results of this analysis show the importance of research, which combines economic and legal terms, and give more attention to the European Union on-line sellers. The paper presents the results of investigations in this context.
In the study, consideration of selling terms is seen as a part of the analysis of purchaser’s decision process where impacts of legal and economic aspects are essential. The same is for the products being sold at international level. Results of theoretical and practical studies show that implementation of internet technologies determines the necessity to identify and analyse the following key issues. The legal and economic aspects are not analysed together in scientific literature. Most of authors, which analyse legal aspects, do not consider economic aspects; the selling terms provided by on-line sellers are not widely analysed from economic perspectives; the selling terms concerning digital products are analysed in 2,4% of the books published in the area of e-commerce.
The study presented in the paper contains four different aspects. First, purchasers’ rights, concerning products purchase via the internet, are disclosed. The difference between selling terms for digital and material products is presented. The main issues of the European Union on-line sellers related to the trade in international markets are overviewed. Second, the comparison of selling terms provided by on-line sellers located in 27 European Union countries is given. For comparison, a set of criteria which describe the main legal and economic aspects is selected, and the multi-criteria evaluation method (i.e., COPRAS) is used. Two groups of criteria are defined: the positive criteria, and negative ones. Finally, the complex evaluation of the effectiveness of selling terms of the on-line sellers is performed. Third, the economic evaluation of investments, which are made with the aim to improve selling terms, is presented. The economic impact for purchasers’ decisions of specific selling terms is analysed. Fourth, the selling terms of several international on-line sellers are compared; recommendations for on-line sellers are given; the selling terms concerning digital products are revised.
The article is based on the comparative and multi-criteria analysis, and economic evaluation. The results of the study show that the complex and economic analysis of selling terms is very important for understanding cross-border purchasing decisions. The main advantage of complex and economic approach is that it allows determining the impact of different aspects to the purchasers’ decisions. In addition, this makes possible to identify which selling term is the most important and provides some economic evaluation that can be used for improving selling terms in the future.