Cross-border e-commerce activity in the UK is steadily increasing, but online retailers still face delivery problems, a recent report points out.

According to the research conducted by UK e-commerce technology company Snow Valley, many UK e- tailers do not offer overseas delivery at all, whereas those who do have not yet developed an efficient delivery system. While the market for cross-border e-commerce may still be relatively small, a report from 2009 found that as much as 7 percent of Europeans prefer to shop online from other countries.

One of the main problems UK e-tailers still have to tackle when delivering overseas concerns the ambiguous way in which the information delivery is presented. For instance, 28 percent of orders were placed on sites that did not make it clear that they deliver to a specific country, even though they did.

The report has also unveiled that delivery charges are another pressing issue, with 57 percent of sites that do offer international delivery not displaying the charges on the basket page. Delivery time scales are also a problematic area for cross-border deliveries. Delivery timescales varied, with “up to ten days” being the most common prediction. Most websites failed to offer any choice for customers, with only 26 percent offering an express delivery option.