E‑commerce in North Macedonia: Cash still dominates, digital skills only 31%
Organisers and officials say cash payments, weak digital skills and low trust are the biggest barriers while electronic transactions grew 14% in H1.
Low digital skills, the persistence of cash payments, the grey economy and limited consumer trust are the main obstacles slowing e‑commerce growth in North Macedonia, speakers said before the opening of the 9th Regional E‑commerce Conference in Skopje.
Nina Angelovska, president of the Association for E‑commerce, warned that while global markets talk about AI agents, hyper‑personalisation and automated commerce, the region still struggles with basic gaps. She pointed to a wide lag in digital competence: only 31 percent of people in the country have basic digital skills versus 64 percent in the European Union, and advanced digital skills are at just 7 percent — the lowest in the region.
Angelovska highlighted one positive sign: the association’s figures show that more than 50 percent of online transactions still end with domestic merchants. At the same time, data from the National Bank for the first half of the year show the total value of electronic transactions rose by 14 percent compared with last year, while the expansion of global platforms has increased outflows — both the number and value of transactions with domestic cards paid abroad.
The conference brings together around 900 participants from 12 countries and includes representatives of major global companies such as Google, LinkedIn, Tesla and Amazon.
State support and local pilots
Stefan Andonovski, Minister of Digital Transformation, said the country has a solid base for development: 97 percent of small and medium enterprises have internet access and buyers are increasingly present online. He described two European digital innovation hubs currently supported by the ministry.
The first hub, operating for a year and a half in cooperation with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies (FEIT), has helped over 60 companies so far through training and digital transformation roadmaps. The second is implemented through DigitMAK and focuses on digitalising merchants. As a pilot example, Andonovski mentioned a Bitola initiative carried out with local chambers, businesses, banks and Visa, where more than 90 small and medium enterprises were fully digitalised — a model the minister said will soon be replicated in other towns.
Photo: press material from the event
