Every culture has a different set of traits and habits

I agree with the first part of the article. Every culture has a different set of traits and habits. The norms which are considered common in one culture may be considered in-appropriate in other culture. For example in Western culture it’s normal to use credit card or open up personal information to vendors; which is not workable in Eastern societies that includes not only Egypt but India as well. The reason for such cultural attitude is the way business is done. In Eastern it is rare for two individual to do business to trust someone unless they know each other for some time.

Thus the idea of pure business relation seems odd in East which is a normal thing in West. The reason for such cultural attitude is the status of economies in the East and West. The third world countries have under developed economies; and these societies are mix of socialistic and capitalist systems. And business is normally done in traditional ways long forgotten in the West. It’s natural in such environment to have lack of trust in e-commerce environment. Creating information societies where people are made aware of internet and the power of e-commerce would be one step in this direction

There may be come some improvement by opening up information; however cultural traits cannot be solved only by making information available. Cultural habits are developed over the course of centuries that will not wither away simply by informing people about internet. The Western societies have been developed through many centuries; which cannot take place over night in the east. In order to develop e-commerce environment; countries like Egypt need to invest in many areas; such as infrastructure, education and more importantly to develop consumer based economy.

People in Egypt (and countries like Egypt) are under paid; wealth is very scarce to produce. In such environment people trust only those; whom they know personally, rather than trusting someone online which they have never met or seen. It would take lot of effort by developing countries to work on their economies making them more market oriented and create businesses and opportunities; only then it would be possible to change cultural habits.