1. The State of
E-commerce in Europe
E-commerce is growing by
leaps and bounds. By 2003, the number of people
buying on-line will have trebled and
transactions will have increased in value
twenty-fold. By this time, it is expected that
Europe’s on-line population will have exceeded
America’s and companies connected to the web
will account for some 80% of the European GDP.
E-commerce has been broken
down into all kinds of categories based on who
is selling to whom. The focus has generally been
on Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and
Business-to-Business (B2B). However, there is
also government to business, government to
consumer and vice versa in both instances, as
well as consumer to consumer and consumer to
business.
Definitions
There
are many different formal definitions of
e-commerce and e-business. For the
purposes of this guide, e-commerce refers
specifically to buying and selling products or
services over the Internet. E-business refers
to all aspects of doing business
electronically. The E-commerce Directive -
mentioned many times in this guide - refers to
information society services.
As is clear from their names,
B2B is a business selling to other businesses
while B2C is a business selling to consumers.
B2B exploits Internet technologies to
re-engineer processes along the organisation’s
value chain in order to lower costs, improve
efficiency and productivity, shorten lead times,
and provide better customer services.
B2C e-commerce does not
present such clear improvements in the value
chain, but has certainly received the lion’s
share of attention. B2C widens a business’s
potential market to include much of the world
and has the potential to provide convenience to
consumers, particularly those not near shopping
centres. Much has been said about consumers
benefiting by being able to search and buy from
the merchant offering the best price, but
research indicates that this is not happening to
the extent expected. It is likely that consumers
are also looking for added value, merchants they
can trust and proximity (to ensure prompt
delivery of their purchase).
The European Union and Member
States have been supporting e-commerce for years
through a variety of means from developing a
legislative framework to providing funding for
research and development. Governments have also
supported awareness-raising initiatives,
training schemes and other pro-e-commerce
activities.
eEurope
eEurope
is an
initiative which aims to get everyone in Europe
– every citizen, every school, every company –
on-line as quickly as possible. The eEurope
initiative builds on the current policy
framework, concentrating on priority actions to
overcome handicaps in Europe that are holding
back the rapid uptake of digital technologies.
eEurope actions are:
1.
European youth into digital age
2.
Cheaper Internet access
3. Fast
Internet for researchers and students
4. Smart
cards for secure electronic access
5. Risk
capital for high-tech SME’s
6.
eParticipation for the disabled
7.
Healthcare online
8.
Intelligent transport
9.
Government on-line
10.
Digital content for a global network
A key
barrier to the take up of Internet use in Europe
has been comparatively expensive
telecommunications costs established by
state-owned telecommunications services.
Therefore, the European Commission has taken the
initiative to liberate the market for
telecommunications infrastructures and services
in the European Union as of 1 January 1998.
Today there are 900 telecommunications
enterprises on the European market. The prices
for long distance calls have decreased in most
European markets by 40 %. In many countries, the
consumer can gain Internet access via a TV
cable. Technological change will continue to
make connecting to the Internet even easier.
Faster home connections and mobile access to the
Internet will vastly improve web site access.
Europe
has a leading role in mobile communications and
digital TV, both of which are user-friendlier to
the non-technical person than a PC. Mobile phone
ownership and use is high in Europe. In 1999
there were 140 million mobile phones in use
(compared to 80 million in the US). If mobile
devices connecting to the Internet and the
infrastructure are fit enough, the number of
“internauts” in Europe could increase from 50
million today, to 130 million in the year 2003.
For the time being, however, the costs for
Internet surfing via mobile phone are too high.
As a result, the Commission has started another
competition-sector specific campaign against
roaming prices as well as for local telephone
tariffs, which are still monopolised in many
countries.
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