75% of large companies in Latvia are not using electronic channels to boost their sales

Survey of Chief Financial Officers in large companies in Baltic States conducted by SEB bank, indicates that three out of four large companies in Latvia (75%) are not using electronic channels such as webstore or mobile app to sell their products or services. Meanwhile large companies in Lithuania and Estonia are more active in terms of utilising digital sales.

18% of CFOs in Latvia have said that sales in digital channels yield up to 10% of their company's turnover, and another 7% gave said that they make 10-25% of their sales through electronic channels.

However in Lithuania 2% of respondents said that digital channels generate at least half of their sales, and another 5% of companies in Lithuania make 25-50% of their turnover via electronic channels. 8% of Lithuanian CFOs say that 10-25% of their sales is done through e-channels, and every third company (32%) reaches up to 10% of their turnover through digital channels.

In Estonia 10% of large companies generate at least half of their turnover through digital channels. 52% of Lithuanian and 61% of Estonian CFOs have said that they are not using digital sales channels at all.

Ints Krasts, board member of SEB Latvia: "There are very few industries with justifiable reasons for not using digital sales channels. Nowadays almost any company can find ways to offer their products or services in the digital environment. Results of our survey indicate that Baltic, especially Latvian companies have still a long way to go in this respect. At SEB we are investing much effort to offer an increasingly wide range of functions through our internet bank, webpage and mobile app. Currently digital sales make up for roughly 40-45% of the total amount of our sales."

At the same time Latvia has the largest share of those companies who have put innovations high on their agenda for 2019. Almost every second company (49%) in Latvia has chosen this answer, in comparison with 37% in Lithuania and 34% in Estonia. However, there is a significant share of large companies who are not thinking about innovations. 14% of CFOs in Latvia and Estonia, and 11% in Lithuania have said that innovations are not important in the context of their company's plans for the next year.

This is the sixth survey of Chief Financial Officers in Baltics. Results reveal whether CFOs expect that next twelve months will bring good or bad news for businesses, identify which are the main concerns and challenges and give an insight in other topics as well. 226 largest companies with annual turnover over 20 million euros from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia participated in the survey, which was carried out during September of this year.