E-commerce

National Statistical Institute

'Labour costs, R&D, innovation and information society statistics' 

Maia Papazova

Lyubomira Angelova

State expert

Chief expert

2, P. Volov Str., 1038 Sofia, Bulgaria

[email protected]

[email protected]

+359 2 9857 733

+359 2 9857 169

• ICT systems and their usage in enterprises;
• use of internet and other electronic networks by enterprises;
• e-commerce and e-business processes;
• ICT competence in the enterprise unit and the demand for ICT skills;
• barriers to use of ICT, internet and other electronic networks, e-commerce and e-business processes;
• ICT security;
• perceived effects of ICT usage on enterprises.

· National Classification of Economic Activities (NCEA-2003, for international use NACE.BG-2003) up to 2009;

· Classification of Economic Activities (CEA-2008, for international use NACE.BG-2008) since 2010.

The survey covers enterprises with 10 or more persons employed classified in the following categories of NACE Rev. 2:

• Section C – “Manufacturing”;
• Section D, E – “Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply”, “Water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities”;
• Section F – “Construction”;
• Section G – “Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles”;
• Section H – “Transportation and storage”;
• Section I – “Accommodation and food service activities”;
• Section J – “Information and communication”;
• Section L – “Real estate activities”;
• Section M – “Professional, scientific and technical activities”;
• Section N – "Administrative and support service activities";
• Group 95.1 – “Repair of computers and communication equipment”

The fixed connection to the internet includes ADSL, SDSL, VDSL, fiber optics technology (FTTP), cable technology, etc.

A mobile connection to the internet means the usage of portable devices connecting to the internet through mobile telephone networks for business purposes.

Cloud computing refers to ICT services that are used over the internet to access software, computing power, storage capacity etc. These services are delivered from servers of service providers, can be easily scaled up or down (e.g. number of users or change of storage capacity), can be used on-demand by the user and are paid for, either per user, by capacity used, or they are pre-paid.

eInvoices are documents in a standard structure suitable for automated processing (EDI (e.g. EDIFACT), XML (e.g. UBL)). They are exchanged either directly or via service operators or via an electronic banking system.

e-Commerce is 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. The payment and the delivery of the goods or services do not have to be conducted online. e-Commerce transactions exclude orders made by manually typed e-mail messages.

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is a software used to manage resources of the enterprise by sharing information among different functional areas (e.g. accounting, planning, production, marketing, etc.).

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a software for managing and facilitating communication with customers, analyzing customer information for marketing purposes, tracking their interests and purchasing habits.

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to systems that use technologies such as: text mining, computer vision, speech recognition, natural language generation, machine learning, deep learning, etc. to gather and/or use data to predict, recommend or decide, with varying levels of autonomy, the best action to achieve specific goals.

ICT security refers to the measures, controls and procedures that an enterprise applies to its own ICT systems to ensure the availability, integrity, authenticity and confidentiality of data and information systems.

Enterprise.

The survey population consists of enterprises with 10 or more persons employed. 

Enterprises located in any part of the territory of the country.

Annual time series are available from 2004 onwards. The contents of the model questionnaire is adapted each year to measure the development of the use of ICT. Therefore not all variables have long time series.

Not applicable.

Per cent

Data refer to the current situation at survey period, or to the calendar year prior to the survey period (e.g. variables relating to e-commerce, e-invoice, big data).

Until 2020:

• Regulation (EC) No 808/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning Community statistics on the information society;
• Annual Commission Regulations implementing Regulation (EC) No 808/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning Community statistics on the information society for the relevant reference year;

From 2021:

• Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics;
• Annual Commission implementing Regulations laying down the technical specifications of data requirements for the topic ‘ICT usage and e-commerce’ for the relevant reference year, pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council;

• Law on Statistics;
• National Statistical Programme.

Not applicable.

· Law on Statistics

· Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

In compliance to the Law on Statistics (Articles 25 and 26).

In accordance to the dates defined in the Release Calendar presenting the results of the statistical surveys carried out by the National Statistical Institute.

The calendar is available on the NSI website.

In accordance to the Rules for Dissemination of Statistical Products and Services.

Annual

Regular press release in the NSI's internet site.

Data on ICT usage and e-commerce in enterprises are available to all users of the NSI website under the heading Information Society.

In accordance to the Rules on Provision of the Anonymised Individual Data for Scientific and Research purposes.

Information services by order in accordance to the Rules for Dissemination of Statistical Products and Services.

Methodological manual for statistics on the Information Society, by Eurostat.

Quality reports comprising general methodological information of the survey, on statistical unit, population, sampling design, response and non-response, data processing and sampling errors.

The Methodological Manual provides guidelines and standards for the implementation of the survey.

The national quality report provides users with basic information on quality at national level.

Main users of the data are Government institutions, research institutions and other users from the country, the European Commission, the International Communication Union and other international organizations.

Not available.

The survey on ICT usage and e-commerce in enterprises implements the full set of compulsory variables, according to EU Regulations.

The sample used for the ICT usage in enterprises survey is a stratified random sample which includes about 5000 enterprises. Due to the sampling approach used the estimation of the parameters obtained from the survey could vary from those in the population due to sampling errors, errors due to non-response, errors in registration or processing etc.

Standard sampling errors are calculated and reported for a selection of indicators and breakdowns by the use of special statistical software. 

Data are disseminated according to the NSI’s Release Calendar schedule. 

All deliverables are provided in time in accordance with the Release Calendar presenting the results of the statistical surveys carried out by the National Statistical Institute and the deadlines defined in the EU regulations in the ICT domain. 

Fully comparable with all EU member states.

Partial comparability due to changes of the general methodology.

Not applicable.

Average duration of enterprise's interview is 25 minutes.

In accordance to the Rules for Dissemination of Statistical Products and Services.

In accordance to the Rules for Dissemination of Statistical Products and Services.

Sample statistical survey on the ICT usage and e-commerce by enterprises.

Data are collected on an annual basis.

Combined web-based questionnaire and interviews by phone or email.

Data validation is done by logical control of the primary data and comparison with the results of previous studies. Additional checks on comparability and data quality are carried out by Eurostat.

Data processing is done by special statistical software.

Not applicable.