The factors effecting transition of smes to electronic commerce: Sample of city of Yalova

SMEs are considered to be the core engine of all of the economies of the world and their shares vary from 60% to 90% of the whole economies of the countries without taking their developmental level into consideration. In addition, a new economic regulation is brought to the world with the communication and internet becoming widespread. The markets are shaped according to this new regulation and SMEs have to take their part in this regulation as well. Electronic commerce (E-commerce) is a very important feature for SMEs which are accepted as the key stones of the world economies. E-commerce, which means selling and/or buying of services and/or goods to be done electronically through internet, increases competitive capacity of SMEs and decreases their costs. Moreover, e-commerce extends SMEs' markets and together with increasing their speed of making business it provides a rapid growth to their sizes. With this assignment the effects of factors, which affects the transition to electronic commerce, on e-commerce using tendency of SMEs operating in Yalova were examined. Within the scope of this assignment, a detailed literature analysis was performed about the factors blocking the transition to e-commerce. Taking the findings from the literature analysis into consideration a search model was developed and according to this model several surveys from similar assignments were put together leading to composing a new survey as an outcome. The new survey was applied to a group as an initial trial and it was revised according to its conclusions. Then, the finalized survey was applied to SMEs operating in Yalova with face to face meetings. In this assignment 142 applied surveys were found to be appropriate for examining further. The findings were analyzed with various statistical programs and they were commented on further. As an outcome from the analysis it was concluded that public support and organisational infrastructure were the main factors on the transition of SMEs to e-commerce. In addition, lacking of technical and legal infrastructures, and safety concerns were not effective on the transition to e-commerce. Furthermore statistically significant differences were found between the demographic groups and factor groups. The main aim of this assignment is to increase competitive capacity of SMEs by providing solutions to the factors blocking a smooth transition to e-commerce.