Abstract:

The multiple-layered growth of the worldwide web and technology-based services have powered forward the digital economy, with its three main elements: the underlying technologies and infrastructures, the ICT and digital sectors themselves, and the wider range of sectors in which digital products and services are in growing use - for instance for e-commerce. (Bukht and Heeks, 2017) At the heart of the digital economy lies the e-commerce, defined by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as “the sale or purchase of goods or services, conducted over computer networks by methods specifically designed for the purpose of receiving or placing of orders.” (OECD, 2020). Goods and services are ordered over these networks, while payment and delivery may be online or offline giving birth to a complex business activity and numerous oportunities. Digital solutions are increasingly needed to continue some of the economic and social activities remotely. As such, businesses and consumers increasingly “went digital”, providing and respectively purchasing more goods and services online, raising e-commerce’s share of global retail trade from 14% in 2019 to about 17% in 2020 (UNCTAD, 2021). Furthermore, the proportion of individuals worldwide engaging with the Internet is estimated to have risen from 29.3 per cent in 2010 to 53.6 per cent in 2019, according to the International Telecommunication Union, and among young people aged 15 to 24, this figure rises to almost 70 per cent (ITU, 2020).