A joint initiative in Hong Kong is tackling consumer and business apathy to buying and selling online.
Although the Hong Kong Government Census Department estimates that 80% of the city's population conducts electronic transactions, these mostly involve automated teller machines and stored-value smartcards used for public transport and convenience stores.
The e-Commerce Adoption Campaign kicked off in December with activities aimed at persuading consumers to try shopping online. Phase II of the campaign is targeted at encouraging businesses, particularly SMEs, to sell to consumers over the internet and to trade online with other businesses.
The campaign may face an uphill battle. The Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC) has been measuring corporate attitudes to e-commerce since 1999; 98% of respondents are SMEs. The June 2001 survey showed a small decline in the number of companies with an online presence. The survey divides online activity into five levels from no access up to a fully-featured e-commerce site.
Hong Kong SMEs are predominantly at Level Two (access to email) and the HKPC has seen strong resistance to moving even as far as Level Three (having a website). "The number of companies at Level Three has decreased slightly because local internet service providers have started charging for the hosting of websites," says Charles Chow, general manager of the HKPC's e-Enterprise Solution Division. "It's not a large decrease, but Levels Three, Four and Five only account for 15% of companies. We have, however, detected a trend in terms of companies developing plans to move to e-adoption."
Chow points to two major reasons why Hong Kong is behind countries such as Singapore and Korea in terms of e-adoption. "SMEs tell us that the internet is not a critical aspect of their business and that there is no push from the top management to move on to more e-adoption."
The e-Adoption Campaign is putting a positive spin on the long odds of persuading Hong Kong SMEs to invest in online services in an economic downturn. "Looking at it from a different angle, there is a lot of potential for us to make our campaign more meaningful because there is lot of room for improvement in e-adoption," says Chow.
Phase II of the campaign is likely to take the form of seminars and street campaigns. In the consumer-orientated Phase I, consumers were given access to computers and invited to try online shopping.
The campaign also plans to help companies take advantage of the Hong Kong Government's SME Fund, which offers financing for training, and promotion and industry-wide development.
Chow concedes that aiming to push companies up to Level Five would be ambitious. "If we can see a mass move into Level Three, having a webpage, that would be an improvement from now.
"Some will move to Level Four eventually and perhaps we can move some Level Three companies to Level Four."
Hong Kong is acknowledged to have a good infrastructure for e-commerce, with high mobile and broadband penetration. It is just a case, says Chow, of persuading companies and consumers to use it.
Although general in nature, the campaign will particularly focus on companies that are more important to Hong Kong in terms of gross domestic product, such as those in the retail, import/export and wholesale industries.