Legal fragmentation, taxation systems (VAT) and logistics/distribution remain the three most difficult barriers to overcome for online merchants selling abroad according to the “Cross-border E-commerce Barometer”. Following on from last year’s successful survey on barriers to growth of the European online sales industry, Ecommerce Europe launched the Barometer amongst its European-wide membership base at the beginning of 2016 to measure the barriers online merchants still face when trying to expand their business cross-border in Europe.

As the voice of the e-commerce industry, Ecommerce Europe provides EU policy makers and companies with first-hand information and workable solutions for the main obstacles online businesses face when trying to sell goods and/or services in other EU Member States. “We have to make sure that we do not make things more complex for the online sector. The Barometer is a useful tool to identify exact problems and assess developments in the e-commerce market following policy initiatives taken at EU level”, declared the Secretary General of Ecommerce Europe, Marlene ten Ham.

The Barometer analysis report examines more in-depth each of the three main barriers to cross-border e-commerce in order to provide detailed and evidence-based facts & figures about the issues which - according to online merchants - require immediate attention and solutions. Furthermore, this year’s study has a dedicated part to merchants’ attitudes towards the increasing globalization of e-commerce. Most of the companies that replied to the survey believe that the globalization of e-commerce will foster unfair competition between EU and extra-EU online merchants.

Click here to download a copy of the analysis report of our “Cross-border E-commerce Barometer 2016”.