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Consumers’ security and trust for online shopping after GDPR: examples from Poland and Ukraine

Artur Strzelecki (Department of Informatics, University of Economics, Katowice, Poland)
Mariia Rizun (Department of Informatics, University of Economics, Katowice, Poland)

Digital Policy, Regulation and Governance

ISSN: 2398-5038

Article publication date: 8 September 2020

Issue publication date: 3 December 2020

1476

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to consider the question of changes brought to consumers’ trust and security issues by the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in electronic commerce.

Design/methodology/approach

Online shopping policies in Poland and Ukraine are compared from the perspective of four factors as follows: application of terms of service and privacy policy, usage of online payment systems, presence in price comparison engines and grade of secure sockets layer security certificates. Comparison is conducted within the framework of three research questions (complemented by eight hypotheses) set to reveal whether: policies of personal data protection and server security for online stores in both countries are the same; all online stores in both countries obey the existing e-commerce rules; e-commerce policies in the two countries differ significantly. The sample for analysis contains 40 Polish and 40 Ukrainian online stores, representing four industries, namely, electronics, entertainment, fashion and goods for children.

Findings

The research allowed to reveal major differences in the privacy policy of the two countries, caused, mainly, by the absence of GDPR in Ukraine. It also disclosed much stronger cooperation of online stores and price comparison engines in Poland compared to Ukraine. At the same time, research results allow to state that server security in both countries is on the same rather high level and that online stores use transparent and safe methods of online payment.

Research limitations/implications

This research opens a way to other, expanded observations which will include more countries and larger scopes of data. Its main limitation is that GDPR influence is only studied in two countries, not in all countries where it is implemented.

Originality/value

This research contributes from security and trust perspectives by analyzing the situation in two countries as follows: the EU member (Poland) and a non-EU country (Ukraine). The value of exploring the situation of Ukrainian e-commerce consists of understanding how online stores function without implementing the GDPR. Observation of shopbots application allows drawing an important conclusion of the necessity for online stores to cooperate with such services. It was also revealed that consumers’ trust in both countries depends a lot on the payment methods applied by an online store and on the ease of use of these methods.

Keywords

Citation

Strzelecki, A. and Rizun, M. (2020), "Consumers’ security and trust for online shopping after GDPR: examples from Poland and Ukraine", Digital Policy, Regulation and Governance, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 289-305. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPRG-06-2019-0044

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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