Euractiv : Consumers turned off by e-shopping, EU report shows
Expatica : Europe vows to liberate online shopping
The main problems for cross-border shopping were payment and delivery.
It is hard to see why big e-commerce websites would not provide a solution for international payment. Most of the online shops use credit card payment, which is as international as it gets. Smaller sites that are not equipped for such transactions could still offer payments by international bank transfers. After all, the new Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) regulations makes wire transfers within the EU as easy (and often faster) than domestic transfers.
Delivery is a bit trickier. National post offices are not always very reliable. But private delivery companies like DHL, UPS or Fedex are good alternatives when the postal system fails to satisfy.
Personally I have never encountered any problem to purchase products from other countries, except from small sellers from Amazon market place that often do not provide international shipping.
Euractiv said:Online cross-border shopping is still too burdensome for both consumers and traders, an EU report found yesterday (22 October).
The case for savings in cross-border shopping is an easy one to make: the wider the net, the more likely a consumer is to find a bargain. But current conditions for both the consumption and the sale of online goods across borders are turning Europeans off the idea, according to an EU report.
60% of online purchases failed in an EU-backed test of 11,000 separate orders on cameras, CDs, books and clothes.
Shoppers participating in the EU survey found that transactions failed because traders refused to sell to the consumer's country, largely due to technical problems or because a particular payment option was not available.
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Expatica : Europe vows to liberate online shopping
Expatica said:Belgium, Bulgaria, Latvia and Romania were the worst offenders in terms of denying access to cross-border online wares.
Two thirds of all products sought -- everything from books to washing machines -- were not even available online from retailers in the Belgian home of the EU.
Other online retail black spots were Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta and Portugal.
Only Austria and Spain had success rates above 50 percent.
The main problems for cross-border shopping were payment and delivery.
It is hard to see why big e-commerce websites would not provide a solution for international payment. Most of the online shops use credit card payment, which is as international as it gets. Smaller sites that are not equipped for such transactions could still offer payments by international bank transfers. After all, the new Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) regulations makes wire transfers within the EU as easy (and often faster) than domestic transfers.
Delivery is a bit trickier. National post offices are not always very reliable. But private delivery companies like DHL, UPS or Fedex are good alternatives when the postal system fails to satisfy.
Personally I have never encountered any problem to purchase products from other countries, except from small sellers from Amazon market place that often do not provide international shipping.