Swedish National Board of Trade publishes report on European cross-border e-commerce barriers

Swedish National Board of Trade publishes report on European cross-border e-commerce barriers

Following the European Commission’s unveiling last month of its plans to create a Digital Single Market for Europe, the Swedish National Board of Trade has published a review of barriers to e-commerce in the European Union. Entitled, Online Trade, Offline Rules, the report “aims to map out the barriers affecting e-commerce in the EU”.

In her foreword to the study, Anna Stellinger, the Director General of the National Board of Trade said: “It provides an inventory of rules, both national and EU-wide, that restrict online trade and discusses possible remedies to these problems. Our hope is to increase the understanding of an increasingly complex market and to show how its rapid transformation may be at odds with the relatively slower evolution of the regulatory framework.”

The report found that many traditional barriers to e-commerce have been removed since the National Board of Trade last conducted a survey of the subject a few years ago, but it noted that “some trade barriers remain”.

“Large parts of the legal framework for e-commerce – from labelling requirements to the national VAT regimes – are still fragmented,” said the report authors. “Especially problematic for e-traders is the assessment of whether their national rules, or those of the consumers, will apply in a cross-border transaction. This may concern a wide variety of issues: the marketing of products, the handling of customer data or the formulation of the terms and conditions in sales contracts. We find that an effort to clarify those issues is needed.”

The report looks at “obstacles to cross-border parcel delivery” – an area which the EC picked out as an area of particular concern when it outlined its Digital Single Market vision.

Several studies have identified barriers and problems related to parcel delivery across borders as experienced by e-traders and consumers. Those problems include: the lack of information, the lack of transparency on available services and prices, high costs for cross-border deliveries, the lack of a so-called “track and trace” mechanisms and return procedures not adapted to crossborder deliveries.”

The report authors added that they had interviewed “a number of e-traders” for the study they had mentioned “in particular” the problem of “price structure (lack of transparency and high costs) for cross-border deliveries)”.

However, the report noted: “Although it is without a doubt that these barriers have a negative effect on cross-border e-commerce, they are not caused by national rules and therefore fall outside the scope of this study. Instead, these obstacles seem to result from market imperfections, as was confirmed by e-traders we have been in contact with. This is also the understanding of the European Commission which, in in its roadmap for completing the single market for parcel delivery, is not proposing new legislation on this matter but rather leaves it up to delivery operators and e-traders to improve the situation.”

 

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