The Usage of E-Commerce in North Cyprus; A Case Study of Famagusta

The thesis examines the usage, opportunities, challenges and effect e-commerce has on businesses in Famagusta. The study includes the identification of factors such as e-commerce opportunities, its challenges, adoption of e-commerce and its effects on business performance. A total of 49 businesses were sampled in the tourism and food sector and questionnaires were distributed to these businesses with the aim of investigating how e-commerce influences the businesses, the opportunities created by e-commerce, the challenges of e-commerce to the businesses and also the customers. The thesis also investigates the impact of e-commerce on the businesses, the efficiency of the use of e-commerce applications such as Bookings.com, Trip advisor and Airbnb for tourism industry, Feedme and Yemeksepeti for the foodservice industry. The thesis discovered that the efficiency of E-commerce process influences Ecommerce applications in business in Famagusta to a great extent. It revealed that service quality via e-commerce enables businesses in Famagusta to convert online visitors to loyal customers and e-commerce made it possible to progressively tailor offerings and products to a mass market in addition to making it possible to provide information on consumer needs. The thesis recommends the e-commerce applications should be adopted by the management of businesses in Famagusta in order to shorten transaction time and improve customer service. Keywords: E-commerce, Famagusta, Opportunities, Challenges and Business sector