The presentation “Development of Women-owned SMEs in Poland focused on Group buying tool and Importance of the Internet” had been prepared on a basis of an article “Selected trends in online trading with special focus on group buying - case study” published in International Journal of Business and Globalisation. This article consist of five parts:

1.     Introduction

2.     Selected trends of Social Networking Sites

3.     S-commerce as an important tool of online trading

1. Characteristics of group buying – description of cases on the example of Poland
2. Conclusions

The pace of changes taking place in the area of Social Networking Sites result in new trends occurring in customer and enterprise environment. Identification of these trends constitutes an important element of formation of competitive economy, regardless if the country is just implementing new technologies, or a developing one.

The theoretical goal of the article is to identify essential trends in online trading. Theoretical considerations focus on description of selected trends in trading on the Internet. The empirical part presents the importance of the Internet in development of SME and describes a case showing characteristic features of using group buying tool from microenterprise’s point of view in service sector in Poland.

On the basis of data presented in the article the following main conclusions can be formulated:

·      New information and communication tools are developing very rapidly. It also ought to be emphasised that there are many trends that permeate and complement each other. 

·      In majority, the Internet has a positive impact on company development; however its negative aspects must not be forgotten. Internet users constitute a specific group of customers. Formation and maintenance of relationships with them proceeds in a way that is different in the case of traditional consumer.

·      From the point of view of a company, the major advantages of group buying include reaching a broader group of customers, possibility to visualise services, low costs, simplicity of customer segmentation and possibility to analyse data without the necessity to conduct studies. On the other hand, in customers’ view, the access to large number of offers at a low price is the largest advantage. 

·      Major disadvantages of group buying include the image that placed offers are of poor quality, occurrence of promotion hunters and high profit margin for the owners of platforms.

·      The Authors recommend regular training courses in ICT for entrepreneurs so that they could develop their competences, get acquainted with new tools and acquire the skill of using them.

• Legal notice:
  

  Copyright (c) Pielaszek Research, all rights reserved.
  The above materials, including auxiliary resources, are subject to Publisher's copyright and the Author(s) intellectual rights. Without limiting Author(s) rights under respective Copyright Transfer Agreement, no part of the above documents may be reproduced without the express written permission of Pielaszek Research, the Publisher. Express permission from the Author(s) is required to use the above materials for academic purposes, such as lectures or scientific presentations.
  In every case, proper references including Author(s) name(s) and URL of this webpage: https://science24.com/paper/31957 must be provided.

1. WRCs' potential to increase women’s participation in SME, Innovation and Economic Growth