International E-Commerce In The Eu Member States: A Growing Economic Activity

E-commerce has been steady rising as Internet and communication technology spread in the world and in the EU, too. Even it is a quite new communication tool, using it has become more and more common. As generational shift deepens and the newcomers are replacing older ones, there are found new uses for Internet. E-commerce, e-banking and Internet become inextricably linked. Even so, there are differences among companies and countries regarding on-line shopping. As in Europe, the biggest e-commerce players originate in the US, and the biggest e-commerce European market is the UK – with 6.1% – there is a quite different acceptance of this new type of trade: the mature European market is located in the Western Europe, while emerging markets are to be found in its Northern and Eastern parts. The situation is due to different aspects such as cultural and linguistic impediments, different legal procedures and different financial policies, with some countries belonging to EURO zone, while others being outside it, different tax polities some countries having a lower value added tax, while other bigger. Even there is stated that the EU intends to cut impediments to international movement of people, goods, and money, there is still a great difference among the EU member states, national borders become in lot of cases technical barriers, harming international movements of goods. Furthermore, there is a technical-legal issue which is connected to international settlements of disputes springing from e-commerce activities, and which authority should be enforced to solve a dispute between a client and a business/seller. There was created a European Consumers Center Network which provides the needed platform for respecting consumers’ rights, but in some cases consumers’ complaints found no solution, especially due to disagreements between the trader and its consumer. Another issue mentioned in the paper is connected to Internet restrictions made by different EU member states, targeting foreign on-line sellers, harming in this way the international trade. Anyway, with growing and more and more people becoming accustomed to e-commerce, the future of this new type of trade will steady grow, but not to the level of totally marginalizing the old style physical trade. Nowadays, almost 57% of European internet users are buying online, but only 16% are shopping from another EU Member State; in the case of European SMEs, only 16% are selling online, with only half of them selling across borders (E-commerce Europe, 2016a:12). It’s not all about selling and buying: internet security, consumer policies, e-logistics, e-payments, taxation and competition must be taken into account.