Last week, I was invited to attend the yearly german eCommerce congress ‘Online Handel 2009’.

Indeed, Bivolino.com was one of the International cases presented and feedbacks from participants were really great…you feel that the german e-Commerce community is very active. Multi-channel retailers like the famous department store Kardstadt (e-commerce pioneer since 1996) or Butlers (e-commerce starter) find their way to get their offline customers online 24h/7days and of course eventually new online customers. Both cases were remarkably presented by very open & authentic ‘Geschäftsführer’ explaining their strategy & tactics….very inspirational !

But let me share this presentation with you. It gives a nice image of where we are today regarding e-Commerce in Europe and where we are going to : Forrester predicts that by 2012 nearly half of retail sales will either be transacted online or influenced by the web !

When Jef Bezos founded Amazon, his vision was that online retailing could reach around the 17% of the whole retail…so let’s be ambitious and go for it!

2009 will be a Grand Cru for the Dutch Thuiswinkel.org ! With an explosive growth since the start in December 2000, the Dutch ‘Home-Shopping’ association has just celebrated the 1000 member ! Wijnand Jongen and his team have a nice success story to be proud of in a very dynamic e-commerce market… Congratulations !

How did they do ? One of the major strategy is the focus on customer trust with the launch of a strong well recognized consumer trustmark , the ‘Thuiswinkel Waarborg’. In 2008 the assisted awareness with logo reached 69% among Dutch computer –owner aged 18+.

Yesterday, Bivolino.com had the pleasure and honour to host Ed Nijpels, new Chairman Board of Directors Thuiswinkel.org. As former party chairman of the Dutch VVD (liberal people’s party) as well as former Vice Prime Minister and Royal Commissioner, he is giving a new elan to the association starting with introducing new rules for the ‘Thuiswinkel Waarborg’ in line with the highly demanding ‘Consumentenbond’ Dutch consumer association. Ed Nijpels is bringing us his long political experience, charisma and maturity which are all really needed to boost the association to the next level.

If you are not a member yet and have plans to enter the Dutch market in 2009, I warmly recommend you  to join us. It will kick up your business and reinforce Dutch customer trust in online shopping !

Five years ago nothing was being bought on the internet, today 50% of the Dutch people are buying online. From travels to clothing and drugs.

By analogy with the US top 500 e-tailer, TwinkleMagazine.nl draws up its first top 100 of the Dutch online B2C turnover. A nice initiative that will have copiers in Europe. The Netherlands and its e-commerce minded population are always one step ahead.
Making a comparison with the US online turnover will be difficult because, contrary to the Twinkle top 100, it does not include financial and travel products.
However, it strikes us that 40% of the Dutch 4 billion e-tail B2C turnover consists of travel products, and these companies are also at the top as far as turnover goes.
Let us have a closer look at the online turnover of clothing. We see that this constitutes 19,7 % of the US total turnover with strong growth figures. Where in the Netherlands they merely constitute 6 % (Wehkamp, Neckermann, Hema, Otto, H&M, Hünkemoller, Klingel – where are Mexx, Tommy Hilfiger?) of the total e-tail turnover, including travels. But if we clear the Twinkle top 100 of the travel branch, than the clothing share is still 10,2 %. So growth is still possible here. Therefore figures and international comparisons must be interpreted. Let’s hope there won’t come 26 European top 100’s each with a different content, because it would just make us crazy instead of wiser.
The lowest turnover in the US top 500 is 5 million euro, the lowest one in the Twinkle top 100 is 2,5 million euro. If it wasn’t for the travel branch in the Twinkle top 100, we would discover the companies with a 1 million euro internet turnover that show specific and interesting niches indeed… and that is also what people are looking for on the internet. Interesting products that are not ‘everyday’. We miss the ‘long tail’ !

Anyway, congratulations Twinkle.

The UK online Christmas shopping is doing 10% better than last year. The UK regular online shoppers are spending more than other consumers. This is what Deloitte reports from the Christmas Retail Survey 2008.

The total online retailsales will reach 4,7 billion £, against 4,2 billion £ last year. This is due to the increase of the numbers of webshoppers as well as the higher amount of money spent online.

Out of this survey, it is also very clear that the British people that are responsible for the biggest part of the Christmas online shopping do spend more than the average UK population: 733£ against 655£.

 81% UK retailers do have a webshop 

From all british retailers with a ‘brick & mortar’ real shop, 81% of them have an online shop as well. Last year this was still only 71% and in 2006, only 51%.  But 56% of the respondants to this enquiry reveal that online sales represents only 10% of their total sales. 22% of the multichannel UK retailers manage to sell online 25% of their total business.