Online shopping in Serbia is undoubtedly growing, with about 1.8 million citizens thus shopping, mostly clothing and sports goods, then household goods, furniture, toys, and often online booking holiday accommodation and paying for travel arrangements.
Last year, online purchases jumped 32.8 percent from 2018, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Tatjana Matic told Tanjug, relying on data from the Bureau of Statistics.
“In November, the National Bank of Serbia dropped the figure that the total payment transaction for the purchase of goods and services online in 2019 amounted to 100 million euros, and this is a significant jump compared to last year”, Matic said.
According to her, compared to 2018, this is an increase in online commerce by 32.8 percent, compared to 2017 an increase of about 118 percent, and compared to 2016, it is an increase of as much as 302 percent.
Matic points out that year after year, online payment transactions are becoming more dominant in Serbia. She says just over 1.8 million people in our country have shopped online in the last year, an increase of 18 percent over the previous year.
“We believe that this increase is significant, but that it is not sufficient and that there is a large space for increasing both the number of customers and the number of online payment transactions”, Matic said.
In addition, the development of e-commerce will also allow for new rules under the new Commerce Act, which introduces the terms “e-shops” and “electronic platforms”. The Ministry says that these terms have not been in domestic legislation so far, which means that it will now be clear to the buyer who is buying the goods and who to turn to in the event of a product complaint.
New products that are expected next year are also the leakage of products in foreign currencies, which will make it easier for domestic dealers to open their offer to foreign markets as well as the application of a new inspection method that allows the inspector to carry out surveillance as a “covert buyer”.
“This will contribute to reducing the gray economy on the internet and boosting consumer confidence, that is, the internet will now be a safer place to shop”, the Ministry informed Tanjug.
Also, amendments to the Law on Electronic Commerce introduce mechanisms for preventing fraud and deception of citizens, as it is forbidden to send unsolicited commercial messages. Mostly payments amounted to less than 50 euros, as much as 59.7 percent, and of the total number of transactions, 12.6 percent were those whose value was between 100 and 500 euros.
