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E-commerce in Europe

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Richard Deiss

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) can be defined as the trading of goods and services over computer mediated networks (such as the Internet); the payment and/or delivery of the products may or may not be made over such a network. E-commerce differs from traditional commerce primarily in the way information is exchanged and processed. Instead of being exchanged through direct personal contact, information is transmitted via a digital network, or some other electronic channel.

As enterprises have embraced this new way of trading, demand for statistics to analyse the phenomenon has grown, both from policy makers and the business community. In response Eurostat, in conjunction with the European Commission's Directorate General for Enterprise, launched a pilot survey on e-commerce in which 13 Member States participated. This Statistics in Focus presents key results of the survey for the 2000/2001 reference year (for methodological notes see page 7). A full report with detailed tables will be published in Spring 2002.

The main findings of the survey are (enterprises of 10 employed persons or more) :

• 92% of enterprises used computers at the time of the survey, 75% had web access and 38% had their own web site at the end of 2000;

• at the beginning of 2001 26% of enterprises implemented e-purchasing processes, but only 19% used e-commerce to make sales;

14% of enterprises used e-commerce for at least 1% of their purchases in 2000 and 6% used it for at least 1% of their sales;

business services enterprises were far more prone to use specialised B2B marketplaces for e-purchases (7.7%) than for e-sales (1.9%);

the main barriers to the use of e-purchasing were uncertainties about the conditions under which transactions take place, whilst cost considerations appear as the main obstacle for not using e-commerce sales;

speed gains are amongst the main benefits of both e-purchasing and esales, ahead of cost savings.

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