Klaipėdos universitetas

The online economy takes a huge role in today’s globalized world. Internet as a general purpose technology changes how companiesoperate, but it also changes the markets. The online economy has a huge effect on people’s everyday life, private and public companiesas well. The goal of this paper is to analyse the global online economy by countries of origin answering the question whichcountries dominate the internet. After deep literature survey on the subject the Alexa Top 500 database is used to analyse it by themost visited websites in the world. The analysis shows the online economy is dominated by the USA and China. Correlation analysisconfirms that GDP correlates with websites originating from that country. This means highly developed countries have better onlineeconomy with more websites, dominating the online economy.

Recent developments of information technologies have supported fast development of Internet shopping worldwide and also using mobile devices. Internet shopping creates convenience for customers, bigger selection of goods and services from one side, but also creates several challenges for companies as well as some problems for companies and customers from the other side. Active research on different aspects is done by businesses, academic researchers alone and in co-operation of business and academic researchers. The aim of research is to find recent ideas of customers on Internet shops and problems raised in Internet shopping using mobile devices and to compare the results with other countries. The authors used the research methods such as: scientific publications’ studies, analysis of statistics on Internet shopping development, a survey realised in Latvia at the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018 on Internet shopping in co-operation with the company iMarketing, University of Latvia, and Chamber of Trade and Commerce of Latvia. The main results and findings of the study, theoretical and practical implications are the following: the response rate of respondents was very high in comparison with other surveys, respondents have also expressed their suggestions and improvements for Internet shopping using mobile devices. The main conclusions of research: increase in Internet shopping in Latvia using mobile devices is not so fast as in other countries, mobile devices for shopping on the Internet are used not so often as in other countries; several local brands already having experience on Internet shopping encounter big challenges in development of Internet marketing; customers highly evaluate previous personal experience and good references of relatives and friends (word of mouth) in use of a respective brand for Internet shopping, but does not want to leave personal information (bank card information, personal code, etc.).

The rapid development of internet and technologies in the 21th century is providing an opportunity for the development of digital democracy – citizen engagement in the decision-making process in an easier, faster and more contemporary way. The paper analysis Latvian public administration’s attitude to the development of digital democracy in Latvia, looking into digital engagement as a possible solution that could foster the low rates of civic and political participation in Latvia. Research methods of the paper consists of an analysis of academic publications on digital democracy and political engagement, and survey to the representatives of the public administration in Latvia. Conclusions of the paper suggest that there are good preconditions for the development of digital democracy in Latvia, however, there is a need for a common regulation for how digital communication and online participation is coordinated. Public institutions should pay more attention to Latvian youth, educating them about public administration and political engagement, thus ensuring that gradually Latvian citizens become more knowledgeable about advantages and necessity to participate in the decision-making process of public administration in Latvia.

Civic engagement is a core value of democracy that approves legitimacy of democracy itself and decisions made by public institutions. In Latvia, civic engagement rates are decreasing, thus for public institutions it is important to find new ways how to engage citizens in the decision-making process. In the twenty-first century, it means that public institutions should also be present in social media. The objectives of the article are to identify foreign experience how public institutions are using social media for civic engagement and evaluate the reasons for Latvian public institutions to learn from this foreign experience. Accordingly, methods of the research are analysis of scientific publications covering examples about digital democracy, civic engagement and use of social media by public institutions, as well as analysis of data about the Internet and social media usage in Latvia. The study findings suggest that Latvian public institutions are already using social media for one-way communication. Moreover, in Latvia, availability of the Internet and participation rates in social media are above the EU average, thus there is potential to use social media also for two-way communication and foster civic engagement.

This study is focused on social media in China and its influence on youth civic participation. In China, a trend of increasing usage of social media platforms has been observed, in particularly WeChat, Weibo, QQ, Douyin, and Meitu. The aim of this research is to explore the link between the use of these social media platforms and civic participation among the youth in China, specifically, whether social media platforms have positive effect on encouragement of youth civic participation. The use of social media platforms is measured by the number of social media accounts, the duration of usage of these accounts, and the average time spending on social media accounts weekly, while civic participation through social media is to measure both civic participation activities and its link with the social media usage.

Skaitmeninimo ir naujų technologijų diegimo sparti plėtra bei COVID-19 pandemijos metu įvairiose valstybėse vykę įmonių veiklų ribojimai paskatino elektroninės komercijos plėtrą. Straipsnyje, taikant mokslinės literatūros palyginamosios analizės, sisteminimo ir apibendrinimo metodus, nagrinėjami elektroninės komercijos platformų sėkmę lemiantys veiksniai. Tyrimo tikslas – nustatyti, kurie veiksniai lemia elektroninės komercijos platformų sėkmę. Atlikta mokslinės literatūros analizė atskleidė, kad elektroninės komercijos sėkmę lemia: efektyvus elektroninės parduotuvės sistemos veikimas, patogi vartotojo aplinka, padedanti kurti puikią vartotojo patirtį, personalizuoti pasiūlymai, lengvai ir aiškiai pateikiama informacija, galimybė įsigyti prekę ar paslaugą atliekant kuo mažiau žingsnių, prekių nuotraukos ir vizualizacijos, vaizdo apžvalgos ir kiti veiksniai. Organizacijos, atsižvelgusios į minėtų veiksnių svarbą, gali tikėtis savo veiklos augimo, t. y. optimalaus klientų pasitenkinimo, didesnio jų srauto, pakartotinių ir daugkartinių pirkimų, kurie, tikėtina, lems augančią apyvartą ir pelną.

Within development of telecommunication, e-commerce is rapidly replacing traditional shopping as well as offering new ways to pay for goods. Payment is one of the main phases of buying decision process and it is crucial to e-commerce, because there is a big possibility that consumer will abandon the shopping cart if preferred payment method is not available. Not only flexible payment options can help company to attract and retain customers, but it also can ensure that company get paid more quickly. The aim of the research is to find out how much money Latvian customers invest when shopping online and which payment methods they use to pay for the purchase on internet in Latvia. Research methods used in the study are scientific publication studies, studies of statistics on internet shopping development, survey realised in Latvia at the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018 on internet shopping in co-operation with company iMarketing, University of Latvia and Chamber of Trade and Commerce of Latvia. For many aspects in evaluation of opinion of respondents it was used evaluation scale 1–10, where do not agree with the statement; 10 – fully agree with statement. For data analysis there were used indicators of descriptive statistics, cross – tabulations, statistical tests of hypotheses, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and correlation analysis. Main results and findings of the study reveals that the most commonly used payment methods for online purchases in Latvia are paying with debit or credit card at the moment of purchase and paying at the store, but the least used payment methods for online purchase is cryptocurrency and at the pick-up box place. Also, there is no statistical difference between female and male customers on use of credit or debit card usage for online payments.