Electronic commerce in the European Union

Regulations and official sources on electronic commerce

The European Parliament and Council adopted June 8, 2000 a European Directive on Electronic Commerce (Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and the Council on certain legal aspects of information society, including the electronic commerce in the Internal Market). This has been transposed in France by the Law on Confidence in the Digital Economy 2004.

The European Directive was preceded by isolated policies of member states of the union as France. For example, from October 1997, Francis Lorentz conducted a mission on Electronic Commerce on behalf of the French Government and was presented May 8, 1998, by the Minister of Economy Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Cross-border electronic commerce within the countries of the European Union

In globalization, the Internet has become a formidable vector of e-commerce. However, issues relating to the purchase of goods abroad reveal difficulties, particularly in cases of dispute.

European countries must in turn translate into national legislation the guidelines for this area, making the rules uniform between each country of the European Union.

In the context of B2C and when a purchase takes place outside the EU should be cautious, know with whom we do business, and be familiar with the conditions of sale. In cases of serious dispute, the only recourse may be filing a complaint in the country of the buyer and the seller’s country. French law protects consumers by stating that a buyer can not be deprived of his right to file complaints in her country of residence.

It seems it is better also have notions of the law of the country which is the seller.

When it comes to B2B, consumer law rather leaves room for the international trade law.

When a product is purchased from abroad, the customs duties and VAT (or equivalent) are payable as if the product was purchased on the national soil.

In practice:

• For all purchases made within the European Union, there are no customs duties and VAT that applies is the country of purchase. It may be worth buying in European countries where the VAT is lower (for example, when one of Germany was 15%). With France, the departments and overseas territories are considered territories of exports relative to metropolitan France
• For all purchases made outside the European Union, customs duties and VAT are payable at entry. Since the buyer is usually not present when the command passes the border (most often it is an airport), postal services are sworn to collect these taxes. In general, these taxes are applied in the form of packages or globally (product cost + shipping for example) which can dearer much the final cost of purchase. Private companies are better organized for this work than traditional postal services.
• Electronic products are often stopped and taxed at the border. Only books that have a VAT and customs duties very weak are never blocked by the postal services because the cost of recovery would be higher than the taxes themselves.

Implementation of electronic commerce

Specifications:

Technical specifications have been adopted for electronic commerce, with ebXML, the English abbreviation for Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language (XML). These specifications are based on the XML markup language. This standard is published by OASIS.

ebXML has become an international technical specification (ISO / TS 15000) in 2004. The UN supports the body with ebXML UN / CEFACT, which imposed this specification to the European Union.

Commerce Commissioner

The delegation consists of a comprehensive management development and management of e-commerce of a mark or emblem form a multi-year partnership with the constant concern to respect the image and the universe of the brand.

Inside this operation, an operator partner offers global expertise in each area of e-commerce that each brand could not afford individually (creating e-shop, e-merchandising, e-marketing logistics, customer service, payment service, managing the back office, etc.)

Measure the volume of electronic commerce

There are no official statistics on electronic commerce in France, but estimates based on different sources: panel merchant sites, amount of credit card transactions, payment platforms. In France, e-commerce represents a transaction amount of approximately € 20 billion and € 25 billion if we include the Banking and trading of financial securities online (source: ACSEL). Electronic commerce represents less than 5% of total retail trade in France. This percentage is fairly similar to those of European countries. In the U.S., it is estimated that electronic commerce represents 6% of retail trade in 2008 (source: NBER).

Software solutions for electronic commerce:

• Intershop
• Isotools Studio
• Microsoft Dynamics NAV
• SAP AG
• OsCommerce
• Magento

E-Commerce Security And Legal Aspects

Electronic commerce leads to a set of questions on computer interoperability between computer systems of customers and suppliers, as well as financial institutions involved in the regulations.

Interoperability computing relies increasingly on the use of metadata in most computer components (XML, databases, enterprise resource planning, decision-making and OLAP hypercubes, etc.).

The French government put in place since 2008 many legal rules for limiting the first influx of pirate sites and other hand introduce a levy on businesses that must (the coup) is reported.

Study: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons.

What Is E-Commerce (Electronic Commerce)?

Electronic commerce or online sales, means the exchange of goods and services between two entities over computer networks, including the Internet. The industry gathered at the Federation of electronic commerce and distance selling accreditations.

Electronic commerce is not limited solely to the Internet. Under the interstate commerce companies, is used for many years, networks such as EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). Electronic transactions will also carry over mobile networks. This is called m-commerce (mobile commerce). More specifically, in France since the 1980s, Minitel has allowed the development of electronic business premises services offered on the Internet today.

E-commerce Is Ideal For Distance Selling

When a property is sold through electronic commerce, it is also about distance selling and the laws that apply to prevail.

Among the major goods and services sold via the Internet to consumers (B2C) include:

• Cultural goods: books, CDs and DVDs, etc;
• Technological devices: computer, electronics, hi-fi, etc;
• Tourism and travel: train tickets, flights, rentals, etc.. ;
• The consumer products with supermarkets online;
• Printing products: business cards, brochures, business collateral;
• Products habitat, clothing, childcare, etc.

There are also products sold online exclusively for professionals (Business to Business, B2B) as:

• Wine
• Tracers, plan copiers, scanners, etc. for consultancies
• Construction equipment (meters, lasers, etc.)
• Commercial vehicle (vans, trucks, refrigerated vehicles, etc.)

As commerce systems specially adapted for the Internet world:

• Development of digital photographs;
• Downloading music;
• Auction between individuals;
• DVD rental Internet
• VOD or video on demand.

Finally, many companies offer Internet services, pay or not:

• Online banking;
• Insurance online;
• Press online.

Electronic commerce — another distribution channel for marketing

Different types of relationship in electronic commerce can be distinguished as:

• E-commerce between businesses, often called B2B, English acronym Business to business;
• The e-commerce for consumer, or B2C, English acronym Business to consumer;
• Electronic commerce between individuals, or C2C, English acronym for Consumer-to-consumer. There are websites for sale between individuals;
• The electronic exchange between a company and its employees, often called intranet or B2E, English acronym Business to employee;
• The electronic exchange between private companies and government, often called B2G, English acronym Business to government.

Sales combined with the method RIMA

In the world of electronic commerce, the click and mortar expression (or bricks and clicks) refers to companies that offer complementary ways:

• Sales by Internet (online activities)
• And store sales or sales point (distribution Classic).

These English expressions are constructed by analogy with the term customary brick and mortar (bricks and mortar).

One might therefore translate this phrase in French: click and shop or internet store. FNAC is a classic example.

These distribution models click and mortar models oppose “virtual” where only trade online is offered to customers. Some operators “virtual” seem to redirect part of their distribution strategy to the click and mortar.

E-Commerce – Efficient Multi-Channel Sales

To develop a multi channel strategy, allows combining Internet, digital television, mobile services and the physical stores. The advantage of such a device is to exploit the growing number of consumers using their purchasing multiple interactive channels.

This form of distribution can also face some obstacles inherent characteristics of the electronic channel. Some consumers are reluctant to pay online and would like for example to pay in stores. A multi-channel strategy is also relevant in terms of logistics network using the store as a stock and transforms them into points withdrawals. Several e-commerce players have opted for this strategy: meilleurtaux.com, pixmania, ldlc.com. Some traditional players in the distribution has in turn put more time to combine the electronic channel and physical channel. We can cite as examples, FNAC or Darty.

In all cases the multi-channel strategy requires a specific organization on many functions: logistics, information systems, customer relationships, price, and promotion.

Continued…