US Leads Europe In Exploiting E-Commerce Potential

Although the concept of e-commerce is rapidly becoming as popular in Europe as in the US, US retailers are still far more aware of how best to exploit its full potential.

According to a new survey-based report by strategic analyst Datamonitor, entitled Consumer E-commerce Markets Across Europe And The US, sharp contrasts still exist between the two continents.

The report found that almost one third of transactional sites in Europe and the US generated non-sales related revenues.

According to Datamonitor’s survey, which was conducted in May 1998 in conjunction with ShopsOnTheNet (http://www.shopsonthenet.com/), revenues for transactional websites were over 4.5 times greater in the US than in Europe. Part of the reason for this is simply because online shopping is more mature in the US, and on average US online shoppers spend more per purchase.

Datamonitor analyst Caroline Magnusson commented: “Although this additional revenue stream for online retailers is still insignificant in comparison to overall revenues, it highlights their futuristic and innovative view of the e-commerce market. Large transactional sites are more likely to generate non-sales revenues, largely because they tend to have far more defined e-commerce strategies. The survey revealed that 60% of large transactional sites generated non-sales revenues in May 1998 – compared to just 28% and 18% for small and medium-sized sites respectively.”

Datamonitor: 0171 316 0001