International cross-border e-commerce could start to boom next year and emerging markets willsoon become the sector’s main growth drivers, a leading European e-commerce expert predicted
yesterday.Worldwide e-commerce revenues are expected to reach €725 billion this year and the number ofinternet users is likely to reach 2.1 billion, or about one third of the world population, JamesRoper, chairman of British e-commerce association IMRG, told the annual German distance-tradingcongress in Wiesbaden. Global e-retail sales increased by almost 25% to €591 billion in 2010,according to the organisation’s ‘B2C Global e-Commerce Overview 2011’ report, published earlierthis year.
North America and Europe remained the two largest markets for e-commerce but their growth rateswere slowing to 15% and 21% respectively this year, Roper said. In contrast, the third-largestmarket, Asia Pacific, would grow about 33% to revenues of some €165 billion, he forecast.
“Regions such as Asia and Brazil are growing the fastest. They will be the future growth driversand it will be mostly mobile commerce,” the British e-commerce veteran predicted.
German e-commerce companies should increasingly look abroad for growth and follow consumers whoare already shopping abroad online, Roper recommended. “2012 is a good time to expand cross-borderoperations. There will be demand that local operators cannot meet. For the next 10 years there willbe a remarkable opportunity to grow on the back on this,” he declared.
Andrej Busch, CEO DHL Parcel Germany, presented the company’s new Parcel Concept 2012 at thecongress, highlighting the forthcoming €750 million investment in the German parcels network. Thisincludes a significant increase sorting capacity to cope with higher volumes in future, laterparcel pick-up times from shippers and near-100% next-day parcel delivery across the country.
DHL’s German online shopping marketplace ‘meinpaket.de’, which was strongly promoted at theaccompanying Mail Order World exhibition, now offers products from 2,000 retailers and has some200,000 registered users, he pointed out.
Frank Iden, managing director of Hermes Logistics Germany, presented the group’s “full service”portfolio of procurement, logistics, transport and delivery services. The Otto-Hermes group wasGermany’s “only specialist in retail logistics” and each group company was “a champion on its own”,Iden declared. “We are a network of specialists,” he commented.
The congress was attended by about 1,200 delegates. More than 6,000 visitors were expected atthe accompanying Mail Order World exhibition where some 380 companies, including logistics andparcels companies DHL, Hermes, DPD, TNT Post, Swiss Post International, Austrian Post and France’sLa Poste, presented products and services for distance-selling and e-retail.
