One out of three Europeans bought something via the internet last year. This amounts to 150 million consumers according to a report of the European Commission. In 2006, 27% off all Europeans made a purchase online. Especially in Denmark (59%), the U.K. (57 %) and the Netherlands (56%) online shopping is very popular. In Belgium only 21% buys goods or services online. Movies, travels, hotels, tickets and multimedia are the most popular items. BeCommerce, the Belgian e-commerce federation also had a study executed. This showed that 4 out of 10 Belgians bought online yearly. Although the numbers may differ, one can see here an increase on a yearly basis (+42%). Per inhabitant, the turnover in Belgium is still less than half the turnover in the Netherlands. “So there’s still an enormous potential for the Belgian e-commerce” says BeCommerce.

However, it sees 3 impediments: the severe Belgian regulations for conditional sale, the prohibition for a long-distance seller to ask for an advance before the end of the “period of reflexion” and the severe rules on discounts. That is why Belgian e-shops could lose the battle with their neighbour countries.

“On the internet, an international alternative is only a mouse click away”
According to the European Commission the competition between countries should not be exaggerated. Helena Kunera, Euro Commissioner for consumer affaires says that consumers mainly stick to the national market. Only 7% shops online at a foreign supplier.

Recently, Clo Willaert , our belgian queen of the blog & organiser of the  Girl Geek Dinner group , invited 40 bloggers for a special day event in London. I was honoured to be part of this community beeing able to test a new ground-breaking application for smart phones using Flickr to share photos &  Twitter for tips messages. The idea is to be able to follow and contact each other in real time during a Shopping day in London.

Eurostar brought us to London for an exclusive shopping hunt and gave us a number of great advantages. In more than 9 shops in Regent Street, we enjoyed discounts and whole bunch of other advantages : a glass of Champagne in the Swarovski Crystallized Lounge, …

We also followed an unique presentation in the Apple Store. Molly Flat, female blogger for the Guardian and Jess Greenwood of Contagious Magazine, gave us an overview of the top 10 trends of 2009.

As you can see here, this great application contains an interactive map of London where you can see all the participating shops and the precise position of all the 40 bloggers. We can also post messages and pictures with the application and automatically exchange them with the others!

Just listen to an interview about what a Girl Geek really is here:

And now back to online shopping!

Online shopping is more environmentally friendly than driving to the shops, according to a new report from the Logistics Research Centre at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.  Their work is being undertaken as part of the UK-Government funded Green Logistics research programme:  www.greenlogistics.org.uk The team found that, on average, having goods delivered to your home by parcel carrier generates significantly less carbon dioxide than making a special trip to the shops to buy the same item.

The research compared the carbon footprints of online and conventional shopping for small goods such as books, CDs, cameras and household items.  The work focused on the final stage in the delivery process, the so-called ‘last mile’, when goods are either delivered to the home or customers travel to the shops to collect them in person.  It was found that a typical van-based home delivery produced 181g CO2, compared with 4,274g CO2 for an average trip to the shops by car.  An average bus trip by a shopper produced 1,265gCO2.  In other words, when a customer drives to the shops and buys fewer than 24 small, non-food items per trip or travels by bus and buys fewer than 7 items, home delivery is more environmentally-friendly.

Download the free report here

With more than one in two UK consumers shopping online today — that is about 28 million consumers — online shopping and travel booking are mainstream. UK online shoppers outspend their European and even their American counterparts. Despite the current recession, we expect online retail and travel sales in the UK to continue growing strongly over the next six years as consumers move their spending online. By 2014, 37 million UK online buyers will spend £56 billion online predicts Forrester.

Tesco, UK’s biggest food retailer, is present in 13 countries employing 400.000 people. Today 1 out of 8£ spent in the UK is spent at Tesco. Tesco.com was launched in 1996 & is now the world’s biggest online food retailer pushing the key core values “convenience & trust” offering “unbeatable value to our customers”. Online is simply another channel time saving compared to the store. People order every week 40 to 60 items and placing such order should take less than 15 minutes.

Nick Lansley, Manager IT R&D projects at Tesco.com illustrated me their success story in a very humble way. He was part of the “founding team” and is still very active today. I like having discussions with those e-commerce survivors. They are the one who really know the e-business.

Here are his 10 lessons I wanted to share with you:

1. Sell Compelling Product Range
2. Use exit
3. Dedicate yourself to superb customer service
4. Help customers to feel save
5. Use that data!
6. Keep in touch
7. Promote your online presence in your stores
8. Make your website easy to use
9. Choose for in-house software development
10. Under- promise & over- deliver!