CSO statistical release, , 11am
The Information Society Statistics - Enterprise publication shows the results from the Survey on e-commerce and ICT 2021. The survey is carried out on an annual basis and was conducted in the first half of 2021. The survey covers enterprises with 10 or more employees and self-employed persons in the Manufacturing, Construction and selected Services sectors. Approximately 4,000 enterprises were surveyed online for the 2021 survey with 49.7% of sampled enterprises completing the survey.
The survey questionnaire can change from year to year to reflect changes in e-commerce and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in enterprises. Additional modules on specific ICT subjects are included annually, biennially or triennially while new modules are introduced each year to capture information on emerging topics or technologies. In addition to the core questions on e-commerce and ICT usage, the 2021 survey questionnaire included questions relating to Cloud Computing, the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence as well as how businesses responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.
| X-axis label | 2021 |
|---|---|
| Set up a website to facilitate online sales | 10 |
| Provided a click & collect (reservation) service | 18 |
| Experienced an increase in sales via websites or apps | 19 |
| Set up a new social media account | 8 |
| Increased use of social media | 31 |
The COVID-19 pandemic and Government measures put in place to reduce its spread have made enterprises across Ireland change how they do business. For many enterprises, this meant increasing their ICT usage or adapting new ICT uses into the business. In the 2021 survey, businesses were asked what measure they took to respond to COVID-19. The survey reports that almost one in five (19%) enterprises reported an increase in sales via websites or apps during the COVID-19 pandemic. One in ten set up a website to facilitate online sales while 18% provided a "click & collect" service. A third (31%) of enterprises increased their use of social media in response to the COVID-19 pandemic while 8% set up a new social media account. See Figure 1.1 and Table 1.1.
| Table 1.1 Enterprise responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 | |
| % | |
| Set up a website to facilitate online sales | 10 |
| Provided a click & collect (reservation) service | 18 |
| Experienced an increase in sales via websites or apps | 19 |
| Set up a new social media account | 8 |
| Increased use of social media | 31 |
| Source: CSO | |
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