July 31, 2017

The Commission says that the 2017 edition of the Consumer Conditions Scoreboard shows that more and more EU consumers are shopping online and that their trust in e-commerce has increased, in particular in buying online from other EU countries.

For retailers, however, the Scoreboard shows that many are still reluctant to expand their online activities and continue to have concerns about selling online to consumers in other EU countries.  Such concerns are mainly linked to a higher risk of fraud and non-payment in cross-border sales, different tax regulations, differences in national contract law and in consumer protection rules.

While consumer conditions have improved overall since the last Scoreboard, the levels of trust, knowledge and protection still vary greatly between EU Member States.

The Scoreboard shows that in ten years the share of Europeans buying online has almost doubled (from 29.7% in 2007 to 55% in 2017).  Since the last Scoreboard consumers’ levels of trust have increased by 12 percentage points for purchases from retailers located in the same country and by 21 percentage points for purchases from other EU Member States.

Although there has been much progress, the Scoreboard shows that consumers are still facing obstacles when trying to buy from online retailers based in another EU country.  For example, 13% of respondents reported a payment being refused and 10% were refused delivery of products to their country.

As for retailers, only four out of ten of those currently selling online said that they are considering selling both domestically and across borders in the coming year.  Many still have concerns about selling online in other countries, namely because of a higher risk of fraud, differences in national tax regulations or national contract law rules, or differences in consumer rules.  This is why, the Commission explains, it has proposed new digital contract rules to harmonise contract rules for online sales of goods, and to promote access to digital content and online sales across the EU.

Compared to the previous edition of the Scoreboard, consumers are more aware of their rights.  On average, 13% of consumers are aware of their key rights (an increase of 3.6 percentage points since 2014).  However, consumer conditions are generally better in northern and western EU countries than eastern and southern ones.

To tackle these issues, the Commission says that it is working on a proposal to update consumer rules.  The aim is to make sure that every European consumer is aware of their rights and that these rights are correctly enforced throughout the EU.

The 2017 Scoreboard also shows that retailers’ knowledge of consumer rules has not improved since the previous edition.  Only 53.5% of their answers to questions on basic consumer rights were correct.  Again, the level of knowledge varies between countries.

Finally, the figures show that while consumers are finding fewer reasons to complain, the ones who have done so are more satisfied with how their complaints are handled.  That said, however, almost one third of consumers decided not to complain, as they considered the sums involved were too small (34.6%) or that the procedure would have taken too long (32.5%).

The Commission says that this is why it has improved the Small Claims procedure, which now allows consumers to benefit from a fast-track online procedure for claims up to €5,000.  The Commission is also encouraging out of court settlements with the Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) platform, which offers easy online access to alternative dispute entities for online transactions.  To read the Commission’s press release in full, click here.