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Everybody's gone surfing
Valued at  3.5 billion in 1999, Europe's business-to-consumer (B2C) market is much smaller. But it is growing more quickly, and is predicted to reach 45 billion by 2002. With more EU citizens connecting to the internet via mobile telephones and digital TV sets, 34.4 million will make web purchases that year, according to EITO(1).
But B2C represents only 15-20% of overall on-line sales. The Boston Consulting Group forecasts that worldwide business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce will reach $4.8 trillion by 2003 - 24% of total business-to-business trade in the US, and 11% in western Europe.
For firms as well as individuals, on-line purchasing offers convenience, choice, price-transparency and significant reductions in costs. As Erkki Liikanen, European Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society puts it: "What company can afford to forego savings of 10% in purchasing and procurement? E-commerce is no longer about 'hype'. It is of strategic importance for all businesses, old and new."
But maximising the benefits to Europe - both economic and social - will also mean ensuring that European companies secure dominant positions in the domestic market for e-commerce technologies and services, as well as a substantial share of global sales. The role of the European Union is critical - in co-ordinating strategic research, in shaping a regulatory framework which favours e-commerce, and in ensuring that all regions, all types of enterprise and all social groups are equally able to benefit.
(1) The European Information Technology Observatory is an annual yearbook of market analysis and statistics, whose 2000 edition for the first time includes a specific section on e-commerce. It can be ordered, price 60, from http://www.fvit-eurobit.de/def-eito.htm |
May 2000
ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
egardless of internet stocks' recent roller coaster ride, the pace of the e-commerce revolution itself will not slacken. Worth $33 billion in 1999, the United States on-line consumer market accounted for 1.4% of total retail sales, and is expected to nearly double again this year. Meanwhile, revenues from on-line advertising rose to $4.6 billion. Serious money is at last being made - if not by the hundreds of 'dot.com' start-up companies, then at least by established electronic retailers such as bookseller Amazon. 