Selling Online by European Enterprises – Multivariate Analysis Approach

This paper aims to describe and analyse possible impacts on selling online by enterprises as the main variable under consideration in the study, in selected European countries using five selected independent variables that represent the information and communication technology (ICT) and the economic development level. Data for 31 European countries were analysed. The paper presents recent trends in European enterprises in using online selling as one of many Internet services. Three groups of countries accord‐ ing to the share of enterprises selling online were recog‐ nized. The complete picture about the achieved economic and ICT development level in the countries was obtained by conducted clustering where all six variables were included in the analysis. The main research hypothesis was that economic and ICT developments have a significant impact on the share of enterprises that sell online. The conducted factor analysis sorted five observed independ‐ ent variables into two groups. The multiple linear regres‐ sion analysis based on the factors showed that both groups have a statistically significant impact on the share of enterprises that sell online. This means that these two factors together have a crucial role in determining the ICT development level in European enterprises.