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Who are the prime customers for the Digital Single Market?

  • Adam WATSON BROWN profile
    Adam WATSON BROWN
    23 February 2015 - updated 4 years ago
  • 2 comments
    Total votes: 0

Some argue that cross-border shopping online will never be a major phenomenon, because of trust, or language, but the evidence suggests that there is real potential.  The universe of people who are more likely to shop across borders is larger than one might think. The 13.7m citizens who live in another Member State provide a small nucleus within the 500m population of the EU. To this must be added a much larger figure:  one third of people who live in an EU border area. This population is very likely to have the confidence, trust and language skills to purchase online goods or service in a neighbouring Member State.  Many of them already shop or work in a neighbouring Member State.

What do you think?

Tags: 
migrantsborder residents

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Julie Guegan's picture
Julie Guegan,
24/02/2015 12:18

I don't think you can ever reduce the risks to zero but the need is strong to work on making online shopping much easier for the consumers.

With the uptake of smartphones, mobile drives the shift.. more and more people access internet for new reasons, they even never have thought about before: the challenge is to create a nice experience which will trigger the act of purchase, but not only: affinity to turn consumers into advocates and active promoters is also very important.

Providing data on new usages and behaviours, and a common dedicated "lab" which will really help to boost innovation in Europe, a European Silicon Valley (online or analog) are very much needed in my humble view. I see a lot of organisations trying to partner with or finance their own start ups, it is a very good move to respond to short term issues. But quid for the long term, should we not invest into a sort of European common soil for start-ups?

Total votes: 0
Euro Optimist's picture
Euro Optimist,
24/02/2015 11:05

How is this even a question?

Just look at the success of ali baba, amazon and ebay and there you have it.

The DSM can be extended to other types of companies, that's the real point. Let's make the banks compete online for real, by removing barriers to paying with any card anywhere, then we can call the DSM a success.

Total votes: 0