The head of the Greek commerce confederation ESEE Vassilis Korkidis on Thursday called on Greek companies that want to differentiate from their competitors to collaborate and trust their online shopping presence to professionals so that consumers can also trust them.
“The factor of the trust is key to the success of e-commerce,” Korkidis said at the 3rd Conference of e-business World 2014.

Korkidis noted that e-commerce provides enormous opportunities to Greek commercial enterprises, while mobile channels open new markets for on-line business. Based on the latest data, Greece is an important market for the development of the “PayPal” payment method as online stores have increased to 63 percent from 29 percent in 2012. The adoption of solutions that make payment easier for the buyer and simultaneously ensures that the merchant can accept payments from abroad is still under development for the Greek online stores.

He reiterated that the Internet is an opportunity for “start uppers & follow uppers” since it is now estimated that more than 5,500 new Greek companies’ business models are based on this. However, the Internet in Greece contributes only 1.2 percent to the GDP, according to a recent survey of the Boston Consulting Group, while the equivalent figure in Europe reaches 3.8 percent. European internet sales are forecast to have risen to 323 billion euros by 2018.
E-business turnover in Greece increased by 600 million euros in 2013.
Finally, he stressed that the European Union has created a new investment fund of 10.4 billion euros to help small and medium sized entreprises (SMEs) develop thought the use of digital technologies.