Conference Report

 PRESENTATION by Walter
Devenuto, EMOTA President
Borderless Digital Commerce
 DEBATE: What’s the
Difference? How Countries
Compare
 PRESENTATION by Xavier
Mayo, Barcelona City
Council: “Does E-Commerce
love BCN?“
The International
E-commerce Forum 2013
14 March 2013
Hotel Fira Palace, Barcelona
held in association with e-show
Barcelona
 DEBATE: The Practicalities
of Cross-border Trading
 ANALYSIS: Near-Future
Technology and Trends
 BEST PRACTICE: What Does
‘Good’ Look Like?
 SPECIAL FOCUS: Brazil
 KEY NOTE by Pablo Arias
Echeverría MEP: “ Is Ecommerce the way out of the
crisis?”
Conference Report
EMOTA, the European Multi-channel and Online Trade Association, in cooperation with the eShow
Barcelona, today hosted the International E-Commerce Forum in Barcelona, which attracted more
than 100 delegates representing e-commerce pure players, multi-channel retailers and distance
sellers from several European countries, to discuss and share the secrets of successful cross-border
trading and debate the core issues that will define and shape Europe’s digital commerce agenda.
During this high-level conference, e-commerce leaders exchanged practical ideas on what information, help, resources and solutions businesses need to enable them to trade across borders more
easily and efficiently, and realize the full potential of the Digital Single Market in Europe.
PROGRAMME:
9.30 - 10.00
PRESENTATION by Walter Devenuto, President
of EMOTA:
Borderless Digital Commerce
-
10.00 - 11.00
E-commerce statistics and insights of key
European markets
Trends and best practices
EU lobbying issues
DEBATE: What’s the Difference? How Countries
Compare
- Thierry Petit, showroomprive.com (FR)
- Thomas Carroux, bonprix (DE; TR)
- Francesca Benati, lastminute.com (IT)
- James Roper, IMRG (UK)
Moderator: Walter Devenuto, EMOTA
11.00 - 11.20
PRESENTATION by Xavier Mayo, Economic
Advisor, City Promotion, Area of Economy,
Enterprise and Employment, Barcelona City
Council: Does E-Commerce love BCN?
11.20 - 11.45
Coffee break , sponsored by Barcelona City Hall
11.45 - 13.00
DEBATE: The Practicalities of Cross-border Trading
-
Alexander von Schirmeister, Ebay (DE)
Luca Cannoniero, M&S (UK)
Bruno Decker, Saldi Privati (IT)
Moderator: James Roper, EMOTA and IMRG
13.00 - 14.00
Lunch time in the
exhibition
14.00 - 15.15
ANALYSIS: Near-Future Technology and Trends
-
Eduardo Menal, Grupo Planeta (ES)
Stephen Mader, Kantar Retail (UK)
Katarzyna Lasota Heller, EDiMA (PL)
Christoph Wenk-Fischer, BVH (DE)
Moderator: Alexandre Nilo Fonseca, EMOTA and
ACEPI
15.15 - 15.30
Short Break
15.30 - 16.45
BEST PRACTICE: What Does ‘Good’ Look Like?
-
Roger Graells, Mango (ES)
Marc Nieto, Letsbonus (ES)
Andreas Schräder, eDreams (ES)
Moderator: Jean-Rémi Gratadour, EMOTA and
ACSEL
16.45 - 17.15
Coffee break and visit to the exhibition
17.15 - 18.15
SPECIAL FOCUS: Brazil.
-
Ludovino Lopes, President of the Brazilian
Chamber of E-Commerce
Flavio Dias, Walmart Brazil
Leonardo Gasparin, Nova Pontocom
Moderator: Mariano Gomide Faria ,VTEX
18.15 - 18.30
Is E-commerce the way out of the crisis? The point
of view of Pablo Arias Echeverría MEP, Chairman
of the European Parliament’s Working Group on
the Digital Single Market
EMOTA commits to drive borderless digital commerce in Europe:
1. Guide and govern international e-commerce for the benefit of consumers, business and society at large;
2. Inform the international e-commerce industry through a standard e-commerce measurement and reporting capability;
3. Proactively listen and respond to the needs of all the digital economy stakeholders, including
merchants, consumers, service providers, and Governments.
“We are very pleased by the impressive growth of online retail
in all European markets, even in such a challenging economic
environment. We are keen to work will all stakeholders at EU
level to harmonize consumer regulations, streamline international logistics and payments, and improve consumer confidence in shopping across borders, in order to realize the huge
economic potential of a true borderless digital economy in
Europe.”
Walter Devenuto. EMOTA President
Opening Presentation
The EMOTA President, Walter Devenuto,
opened the conference and presented the
developments of e-commerce, focussing on
its job creation potential, Europe’s position
compared to the rest of the world and the
EU regulatory topics having a major impact
on online trade.
EMOTA estimated the e-commerce turnover
in Europe having reached € 300 billion in
2012, what meant an impressive growth rate
of 20% compared to 2011. The online retail
market would continue to expand rapidly in Europe, with forecast growth rate of around 15-20% in
2013. Europe would remain the largest e-commerce market in the world and grow faster than North
America in 2013. Citing a study by Civic Consulting, Mr Devenuto stressed also that the benefits of a
borderless digital market, in terms of lower prices and wider choice for consumers, were estimated
to be over € 200 billion per year, corresponding to 1.7% of the GDP of the European Union.
The following first session, moderated by Walter Devenuto, focussed on the differences that could
be observed by traders on the various e-commerce markets in Europe.
Francesca Benati (lastminute.com) highlighted the double-digit growth rates of the Italian and
Spanish e-travel sector in 2012, despite of difficult times for the travel
sector in general, due to the economic recession. The travel industry
benefitted also from cross-border business. Spain was a challenging
market due to its fragmentation. On both markets, strong market
concentration made it difficult to compete. From the challenges for etraders Ms Benati further mentioned the way in which price comparison
engines were changing the traffic to online travel agencies’ sites; and how
credit card fees balanced the discounts offered to consumers.
Lastminute.com started refocusing on last minute offers.
The specificities of the French online market were presented by Thierry
Petit (showroomprive.com).There were 100.000 e-commerce websites in
France, but 40 of them accounted for the
majority of sales. He felt that France still
had to catch up with other markets: only
7% of retailers sold online in France,
compared to 13% in the UK. As to crossborder business Mr Petit referred to the
speed of delivery as an example for the
differences among the European
countries: whereas in Spain delivery took
between two and three days, the Nordic
countries offered one or same day
delivery, and in France, the delivery
speed laid somewhere in the middle.
The problem of Europe was its
fragmentation which made it difficult to
launch business abroad. For any effective
marketing strategy, it was important to understand the local culture and expectations.
Although Europe was leading in terms of e-commerce, there were lots of barriers to cross-border
sales. The VAT requirements and differing payment methods were complicated to handle for
companies. Europe should simplify the rules & regulations, but the necessary political decisions took
too long for e-commerce where developments happened so fast.
Thomas Carroux (bonprix) presented the changes and developments
on the German distance selling market where the former two main
competitors for all market players, Quelle and Neckermann, where no
longer operating. Otto has been competing with Amazon and Zalando
which both were enjoying impressive growth on the market. German
consumers expected high product quality and liked hunting for
bargains, what led to sharp competition. In the textile sector, the high
return rates were a particular issue to be taken into consideration. As
to payments, offering payment by invoice to German consumers was a
must for every e-trader.
Another challenge was the fact that
younger consumers became less and
less loyal, meaning that companies had
to work quite harder to retain
customers than they had to in the past.
Mr Carroux further informed about
Bonprix’s entrance into the Turkish
market; a market without distance
selling tradition which differed largely
from the German one. Turkish
consumers were very eager to try the
new distance sales channels, but there
was big competition from stationary retail and the expectations in terms of service quality and speed
were quite high.
As to cross-border business Mr Carroux stressed the biggest obstacle remaining the logistics. Europe
was not ready for a logistical flow at reasonable cost.
Describing the e-commerce leader in Europe,
the UK market, Mr James Roper (IMRG)
pointed to the impressive turnover of £78
billion that estimates revealed for 2012:
Travelling/ticketing accounted for 20% of this
turnover. The UK market was very strong and
sophisticated. As to cross-border business, Mr
Roper stressed that the UK leading merchants
went into quite early -25% of parcels were
moving across borders, in general 16%
outbound- and gave the example of Clarks
shoes which was a rather ordinary shoes brand
normally, but managed to become the top brand in some countries, thus reflecting the difference in
markets. EU politicians should better organise and harmonise legal requirements for businesses.
From a global perspective he felt that for too long, the European merchants ignored the US and
Asian competition, for which they were paying the price now.
Representing the Barcelona City Council who kindly
contributed with a sponsorship to the Forum, Xavier
Mayo addressed the audience with a presentation of
the importance of e-commerce for Barcelona.
The online sales channel employed about 5000 people
and bore continued job creation potential. Barcelona
was the main reference point for e-commerce in Spain.
Mr Mayo further presented the latest actions taken by
the Barcelona public authorities aimed at attracting
even more businesses to Barcelona in order to spark
economic growth.
The practicalities of cross-border trading were discussed in a special session moderated by the
EMOTA Vice-President and CEO of IMRG, James Roper.
The general observation was that all policy makers were nowadays focusing on e-commerce. Ecommerce was considered to be a big engine for growth.
Supporting Thomas Carroux’ observation, Alexander
von Schirmeister (eBay) pointed to logistics as being
the key area where most improvements were still
needed for the development of cross-border trade.
This added to major challenges such as different legal
obligations, different languages, VAT rates and
payment methods. eBay invested quite some
resources in proposing to merchants good solutions
to these obstacles.
20% of eBay’s global business happened across
borders; and the emergence of mobile commerce
pressed cross-border trade further ahead. The main
trade flows ran from China into the US or the EU,
and between countries without language barrier, for
instance between the US and the UK or Australia.
In the USA, eBay has been testing 1h/immediate
delivery service, a niche segment that could no
longer be ignored. Mr Schirmeister deplored that
despite of the great business opportunities that led
in the cross-border delivery segment, nobody
seemed to be ready to seize it.
It could further be observed that 27% to 30% of UK
merchants were exporters, and over 90% of UK
sellers had engaged in a cross-border transaction,
passively or actively. Consumers were becoming
more and more active in searching for the offers that matched their needs and actively sought crossborder offers. Estimates suggested that by 2015, 91% of online buyers would come from emerging
markets and account for 55% of the growth. Chinese e-commerce would soon exceed the US one; a
big challenge for Europe.
A less optimistic picture of the Italian e-commerce market was
drawn by Bruno Decker (Saldi Privati). Italy was a fragmented
market with many small players. Logistics were the key issue
also for e-commerce in Italy, a country with a complicated
geography, the highest fuel prices in Europe and consumers
who attached great importance to free shipping. These aspects,
together with a strict legal environment, demanding consumers
who wanted great brands for good prices, low credit card usage
and a general preference for high street shopping made it
difficult for e-commerce to grow. In the absence of big mail order companies from catalogue times,
e-commerce was growing in Italy from a very low level. Amazon entered the market and owed its
success to the fact that Italians loved foreign products. Also, Mr Decker observed that Italian
universities were not paying enough attention to e-commerce. This translated into a lack of interest
from students and young professionals to recognize e-commerce as a good career opportunity.
Luca Cannoniero (Marks & Spencer) informed that M&S, a
company with an annual online turnover of more than £600
million, launched sites in several countries, including China,
Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, Austria and Spain. In
each country there were different customer expectations
that needed to be taken into account. Being online was
easy, but being successful online was still different. M&S
was generally a known brand at global level but brand
awareness didn’t translate automatically into sales. There
was quite some time and investment needed so as to be
able to offer consumers local experience.
A further key aspect in a business selling across several channels, such as M&S, was to find a way to
manage the prices and cost differences between online and offline.
Taking the floor from the audience, Alessandro Valdettaro from Asendia
explained at the end of this session the complexity of cross border delivery.
Parcels were managed by several different postal operators through the
process. The first operator had to rely on the last mile operator and
sometimes there wasn’t any possibility for the first operator to have control
on the entire delivery process.
The third Forum session, moderated by Alexandre Nilo Fonseca, EMOTA
Board member and President of ACEPI, looked into near-future technology and trends.
Whereas Katarzyna Lasota Heller
(European Digital Media Association,
EDIMA) believed that on the online
market, the big players would become
even bigger making it more difficult and
expensive for SMEs to survive, Christoph
Wenk-Fischer (BVH) thought that new
competitors would challenge the existing
companies and drive the market forward.
He recognized that SMEs had hard times
when monopolies existed, but they could
face the challenge by finding their own
ways to success instead of trying to
imitate. We were in the middle of a
revolution of the industry itself, trading in general was changing.
Ms Lasota added that the online market was very complex, with many channels available, and
companies could not afford to single one channel out as the best. Policy makers should ensure that
investments are available to help SMEs to grow. It
was very easy to be online for any company, but just
being online was not enough. Regarding crossborder business, she confirmed the views of the
previous speakers: for being successful, a local
approach was needed. Ms Lasota finally raised the
issue of copyright and deplored that the respective
European rules were so outdated.
Stephen Mader (Kantar Retail) provided for a positive description of the
evolution in the market. Companies such as Amazon challenged the
existing market players and tried to benefit from pushing competition
up. However, news about large, established retailers suffering significant
losses, or even being forced to close their business, were not necessarily
a sign that the market was not doing well. It was rather showing that
retailers could not ignore e-commerce and that they had to develop a
strategy that ensured their competitiveness.
The challenging position of a big
traditional seller of books and
encyclopaedias was vividly presented by
Eduardo Menal (Grupo Planeta). Taken by surprise by the online
boom, the company had a shock when five years ago sales fell from
thousand encyclopedias per day to 20. The enterprise had to adapt
quickly to the
more and
more complex
online market
and needed
to invest into
finding new
opportunities. Nevertheless, Mr Menal felt
there remained always room for physical
stores. In line with Ms Lasota, he further
thought that the policy around intellectual
property rights was problematic. It drove
consumers to download content illegally,
what in Spain alone made the industry loose
about €11 billion per year.
Under the moderation of Jean-Rémi Gratadour, EMOTA Strategy
Committee member and Managing Director of ACSEL, the final
European session explored best practice and what “good” looked like.
The considerable experience of a company operating internationally,
including Spain, Portugal, Italy, Argentina and Chile, was described by
Marc Nieto (Letsbonus). The successful company, third e-commerce site
in Spain in terms of visits, learnt that to be a relevant player on a market,
it was important to capture
before a potential competitor
did so. There was a strong relationship between South
America and Barcelona. Travel business constituted the
“nice to have” part of Letsbonus.
Due to its constant increase, also in South America,
payment fraud was a particular issue to which the
company paid attention. Trying to avoid fraud included
careful study of the payment habits and methods in
every country and correspondent adaptation of the
website.
The impressive number of 38 countries is served by eDreams,
represented at the Forum by Andreas Schräder. His advice regarding
internationalisation was not to engage in export when one had nothing
excellent to offer abroad and was not strong enough on the home
market. Secondly, Mr Schräder advised not to address new markets one
by one, but to bundle, for instance, the countries of interest per
language groups. And thirdly, it was important, he added, to conduct a
market research before entering a new country and to check whether
there was a chance of being profitable.
Roger Graell (Mango) described more in detail the advantages and
disadvantages of a centralised and a decentralised business model. In
countries with warehouses delivery could be managed faster and
cheaper. On the other hand, decentralised warehouses had less stock
capacity available than a central warehouse. An offline presence via
stores offered certain advantages, such as the parcel pick-up possibility,
or shipment from stores. Though, this required good stock management,
Mr Graell added.
Another
challenge in
Europe was the
need to offer cash
on delivery, what
entailed local
shipment and bore the risk of parcel rejection
for the benefit of avoiding payment.
Mango managed its international business
out of Barcelona and ran stores in 110
countries.
Mr Graell saw retailing move towards channel
integration and click & collect models.
The last Forum session was devoted to the
Brazilian e-commerce market.
The President of the Brazilian Chamber of
Commerce (Camara.e-net), Ludovino Lopes,
provided for an overview of the Brazilian market.
The young country was the 6th economy in the
world. The B2C turnover of 2012 was estimated
at BRL 22 billion which corresponded to about
$11 billion.
The most sold items were white goods, beauty &
health products, fashion/accessories and
books/magazines.

The biggest challenges of the country:
 logistics and geography: there were huge
distances and access sometimes difficult and
costly;
 the tax structure: there were 55 different
types of taxes and each of the 27 States applied
them differently;
 the need of qualified labour: there were
not enough experts available on the market, but
recent immigration from Europe brought some
improvement of the situation;
 market operational issues: there was a
strong need to adapt to the realities of the
country and to respond to consumers’ habits;
the regulatory framework: data protection or contractual issues started to be discussed in
the e-commerce context by regulators.
After Mr Lopes’ presentation, Leonardo Gasparin, Flavio Dias and Mariano Gomide presented Nova
Pontocom, Walmart Brasil and VTEX.
Nova Pontocom was a branch of GRUPO PÃO DE AÇÚCAR, the
largest retail group in Brazil. Nova Pontocom was a 100% ecommerce oriented company and responsible for online sales of 3
of the largest Brazilian retail brands: Casas Bahia, estra.com.br
and pontofrio.com. Within three years, the company grew by
impressive 550% and became the second largest e-commerce
operation in Brazil.
Walmart Brasil ran 500+ stores in Brasil
and was the third largest retailer in the
country.Walmart.com.br was launched
four years ago and reached a 100.000 SKUs
turnover in 24 categories. The company
enjoyed 40 million visits per month.
VTEX was an ecommerce platform
founded in 2000,
with offices in São
Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. It
occupied 203 employees. More than 10
millon orders per year passed throught the
VTEX technology platform.
The Brazilian guests further informed
about fraud being a big issue in Brazil,
leading to 3% to 5% of orders being
blocked daily because of suspicion of
fraud.
At the end of the International E-Commerce Forum, MEP Pablo Arias Echeverría joined the
audience for a keynote speech on the importance of e-commerce from the point of view of a
European legislator.
He recalled the digital revolution that was happening
today and expressed his worries about the fact that
European companies lost the leading position they
enjoyed ten years ago. Now the e-commerce markets
were led by big brands from outside Europe which did
not pay the same taxes. It seemed that Europeans did
not find their place in the digital world where things
were moving very fast. Europe should therefore pay
utmost attention to catch up. When Mr Arias became an
MEP, he realised that people spoke about e-commerce
as something that would happen in the future. Policy
makers did not look at the economic crisis via the
perspective of the future, but of the past. He therefore
felt there was a strong need to drive the focus in the
right direction and created the EU Parliament’s Working Group on the Digital Single Market. At the
regular meetings of this Group, MEPs and EU Commission representatives could discuss all matters
of importance to e-commerce and the digital environment with the relevant stakeholders, such as
EMOTA.
Another important matter that the European Parliament needed to address was the existing legal
fragmentation that resulted from heterogeneous transposition of European rules by the EU member
States. Small and medium sized companies could hardly afford the experts needed to deal with this
legal fragmentation; only large companies could. Competition was therefore distorted. In this
context, Mr Arias gave the example of a Spanish company that had to spend €12 million to be able
to sell in 12 Member States.
Finally, Mr Arias pointed to the importance of trust. A large percentage of companies in the EU were
still not online because they didn’t trust the online environment. If institutions decided to help small
and medium sized companies with money to connect to the internet, by creating for instance one
employment per small or medium sized company, the incredible amount of 18 million jobs could be
created in Europe.
The way out of the crisis had a digital format, he concluded, and time was ripe to grasp the
opportunities.