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by Peter White |
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Introduction | Europe | Opportunities The European business-to-consumer e-commerce market is projected by Dataquest to grow from $5.4 billion this year to more than $115 billion in 2003. Dataquest claims Europe's growth has been buoyed by the falling cost of Net access and the development of country and language-specific sites, dedicated to serving e-shoppers not necessarily catered for by established US e-outfits. Yet for many European businesses, turning the corporate web-site into a dynamic and attractive sales tool is often too much trouble. European sales and marketing executives do not currently see e-commerce as a core concern. A 1998 Yankee Group survey on US businesses found that some 58% of respondents thought the Web was important or very important. Re-running that survey in mid-1999 in Europe, even after all the Internet hype of the past months, met with a paltry positive response of just 37%. Many Europeans see all the attention given to the 'e' rather than the commerce. It's easy to understand why. With consumer credit card ownership much lower in Europe than the US, and almost no big business-to-business purchases done using corporate credit cards, how can e-businesses get paid online, especially to the tune of $115 billion?
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