Business to Consumer E-commerce
The B2C industry
accounts for about 3% of the e-commerce volume in Singapore. The financial
services sector was the main contributor to B2C activities.[1] The most populate e-commerce site for Singapore users is
www.DBS.com, owned by the government-linked back of Singapore, the largest
retail bank in Singapore. Security
is an issue for Singaporeans. People
regard banking, mortgage and insurance internet sites as the most secure
and tend to most frequently visited.
Business to Consumer
e-commerce will be outweighed
by B2B by about 10:1 in the region as B2C faces larger obstacles than B2B.
Among the B2C barriers are low purchasing power, fragmented markets,
different languages, logistic and distribution problems, and almost
non-existent payment systems. [2]
While the B2C volume
is not high, Singapore has the highest rate of consumers purchasing
products via e-commerce sites. Fifty-four
percent of Singaporean internet users have visited e-commerce sites, the
highest among the Asian countries. Hong
Kong users were second, at 49.5%.
Content Regulation
for B2C
The Singapore
government has placed restrictions on the types of web sites accessible
within Singapore. Personal communications, such as email or Internet relay
chat, personal websites and corporate Internet use by employees or for
business transactions are not regulated.
However, IASPs are required to limit public access to pornography
sites.
[1] [1]
Veloo, Peter. 1999. E-commerce forum to give Singapore a boost. CNET.
10, September.
[2] Peck, Casuarina. 2000. E-commerce In Singapore To
hit US$2.1B By Year-end
[3] Centre for Management of Innovation & Technopreneurship at NUS (CMIT).