European Commission published on 29 March the Spring Consumer Markets Scoreboard. Consumer Markets Scoreboard informs as to how the internal market is performing for the consumers in terms of choice, competitive prices and satisfaction.
Interesting findings for the year 2009:
- only 29% consumers made any purchase in another EU country (25% in 2008)
- only 25% of retailers sold to another EU country (20% in 2008)
- 34% of EU consumers bought goods or services online from national sellers (28% in 2008)
- only 8% ordered online from elsewhere in EU
- over 60% of cross-border orders fail
Despite the European Commission being busy in the past decades in removing barriers to trade in the internal market, it seems that the trust of the consumers in trading cross-border is still significantly limited. There is a certain growth with every year in a number of transactions conducted, however, the progress is very slow. Hopefully, with the new directive on consumer rights focused on harmonizing the internal market even more, the chances grow that the coming years will be more successful.