Europe to enhance cross-border e-commerce

The European Commission’s Digital Single Market (DSM) agenda, much of which will go into action this year, plans to usher in more of cross-border e-commerce.

Online commerce was worth 368 billion euros ($413 billion) in 2014, and experts say it could be much more valuable in the years ahead if Europe’s longstanding barriers to cross-border trade are reduced.

To that end, the DSM proposal includes development of affordable cross-border delivery, reduced VAT burdens on cross-border transactions and other incentives to make the EU a more attractive market for e-commerce merchants and to give the region’s consumers more purchasing power.

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The EU's DSM is one of the key components of the EU’s Europe 2020 programme, all of which support the growth and optimization of the EU’s economy.

The European Commission introduced its DSM proposals in May 2015, with most of the plans slated to kick off in 2016. Besides VAT relief for small businesses within the EU and better cross-border parcel delivery, the DSM calls for changes to copyright laws to allow consumers EU-wide access to digital goods, a standardized consumer dispute resolution process, better data privacy rules and broader consumer access to online shopping regardless of location.

The year, the Commission expects to take on the thorny problem of cross-border parcel delivery. Merchants send some 4 billion parcels across the EU each year, but more than 60 per cent of EU-based sellers surveyed by the Commission said that high shipping rates across EU country borders prevent them from selling online.