Currently, countries such as Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece are lagging behind the rest of Europe when it comes to B2C commerce, the online population in these countries is relatively small and users tend to be fairly inexperienced. Forrester also cite “A highly fragmented retail market, a dearth of publicly quoted firms, and absent venture capital to fuel dot-com competitors [meaning] that few retailers have the scale, funds, and external pressure to move online” as reasons for the undeveloped B2C market.
The three key drivers of future success, Forrester believes, will be aggressive, commission-seeking portals, ‘invaders’ – experienced retailers from outside the region – followed by local grocers, defending their share of the market.
