European ecommerce slowdown caused by cross-border package shipment high prices

And this happens when 37% of retailers now sell via the internet in their own country, according to recent research by B2C Europe analysing the shopping habits of online consumers in eight countries in the eurozone, emarketservices.com reports.

The costs can be as much as five times those of domestic transactions in each member state of the European Union (EU), representing an obstacle for the online sector. In addition, only 15% consumers shop via the internet in other EU countries, whereas 44% invest in online stores in their own country. The data highlights the fact that the cross-border packaging service is inefficient and deters consumers when buying or selling in other EU countries.

The European Commission will therefore propose a series of measures to improve the transparency of prices and the regulatory supervision of packaging markets in order to make the costs more affordable, and prevent 40% of Europeans from abandoning their online purchases due to high delivery costs.

40% of Europeans abandon their online purchases due to high delivery costs and 79% of consumers have abandoned their purchases via the internet at least once in the last six months, whereas 39% of users have done so once a month. The survey also reveals that only 3% of consumers would make the same investment again.

33% of customers say they use shopping baskets as a way of comparing prices and gaining an idea of the total cost, and another 20% abandon their purchase because their payment method was unavailable. Long wait times are the cause of 15% of abandonment, and the lack of information on returns accounts for 11% of online failures.

In fact, logistical management is the decider between the success and failure of an ecommerce business, so it cannot be overlooked by any online store