CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Nearly everything under the U.S. sun can be purchased online. But the Internet and World Wide Web can't get mukluks to Moscow, caviar to Kiev or vodka to Vladivostok.
Although Eastern Europeans are discovering the Internet's commercial potential, the Web still has a long way to go before it becomes an indispensable tool of advertising and sales in the region. So says Marek Sroka, a professor of library administration and Slavic cataloger for the Slavic and East European Library of the University of Illinois.
Sroka has examined the commercial development of the Internet and the Web in Eastern Europe, especially regional Internet leaders the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Slovenia. He also has looked at U.S. business Web sites in Eastern European emerging markets, focusing on their design, content and customer friendliness. His findings appear in "Online & CD-ROM Review," December 1998, and the forthcoming issue of "Proceedings of the 20th Annual National Online Meeting."
According to Sroka, the most developed area of the commercial Internet in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Russia is the Internet service providers market. The least developed area is commercial online shopping. What few online stores there are sell computer products, books and music. LOT Polish Airlines, however, soars high above most, offering online booking, and an Estonian bookstore, Tartu University Bookshop, offers more than 20,0000 titles on a wide range of subjects. Of the former Soviet republics, Estonia is the fastest growing Internet community.
Online security is a huge issue across the board, Sroka said, since many companies have no security system; customers must submit credit card numbers by e-mail. "Online security seems to be crucial for the future development of online shopping in Eastern Europe," he said.
U.S. presence in Eastern European online markets also is still small. "Only a few companies, foreign and domestic, attach great importance to the Web as a tool of advertising and business transactions," Sroka said. American companies that have created Web sites for Eastern European emerging markets are primarily computer hardware and software firms -- Apple, Compaq, Dell, IBM, Microsoft and Novell. Other companies include Citibank, Ford, General Motors and PepsiCo. Most of their efforts, however, are on advertising and marketing, rather than on online shopping.
U.S. Web sites in Eastern Europe are standardized and easy to navigate, Sroka said, but they often have serious language inconsistencies. Search options, for example, are usually only in English.
One U.S. company that does offer online shopping, Dell in the Czech Republic, won't send its wares until your korunas have been deposited in its bank account in Prague.
One area where America's presence is felt, although it is not commercial, is e-mail lists and newsgroups, Sroka said. The popularity in Poland of the U.S. TV program "Northern Exposure" led to the creation of a busy Polish fan mail list called "Alaska."