Challenges of Using E-commerce in Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Perspective of Online Store Owners

Over the past two decades, the e-commerce sector experienced substantial growth as customers recognized the numerous benefits of online shopping. While providing plenty of benefits for customers, e-commerce growth affected businesses as well. Online stores offer myriad possibilities for businesses to improve their sales, while they also represent an excellent opportunity for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to grow their businesses. Several drivers of the overall online store success are found in literature: quality of online shopping experience, security, website quality, ease of use, value in terms of the product choice and prices, website reputation and the process of trust building with customers. In addition to buyers’ trust, the sellers’ trust plays an important role in the continuity of their use of online marketplaces. Since the existing literature predominantly deals with the perspective of customers, the focus of this study is on the presentation of challenges concerning business and success factors for online stores. The paper presents the findings conducted in 2023 on a sample of 162 online store owners from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The findings confirm some of the findings from literature, but also provide a specific overview of online sellers’ perceptions across different categories.