'Why don't you buy from foreign sites?' asks Commish, snapping on the gloves The European Commission is to probe the e-commerce sector to find out why people aren’t buying across borders. According to the Commish, despite half of all EU consumers shopping online, only around 15% of them bought from a seller based in another EU country. Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager suspects that: “It’s …
International ordering with delivery by a business local to the intended recipient was something Interflora got right years back (okay the choice isn't great and you are to some extent buying blind and relying on the local florist to interpret your brief, but at least you can do it). It has always irritated me that many international businesses insist that if you are UK based say, then the only site you can order from is your national site and hence shipping is from the UK and not from their operation local to your stated delivery address.
I always liked the idea of setting up Interfauna as a competitor to Interflora. So you could send people animals as well as flowers.
However the legality of facilitating ng cross-border procurement of that crate of rabid Wolverines for your ex-partner as a friendly 'reminder' of your divorce-anniversary could be a bit problematic.
Is she daft?
The answer is quite simple - 13% of people buy from foreign sites because 13% of people can comfortably understand foreign languages.
I for example can handily communicate in French or German but buggered if I could understand Greek or Polish, hence I would not buy from those countries due to the fact that while I might want to order say a graphics card, but in all likelyhood would place an order for a pallet of jaffa cakes by mistake.
I don't speak a word of German, but the similarities between amazon.de and amazon.co.uk coupled with Chrome translating the pages made ordering a bunch of Carcassonne expansions easy peasy. And far cheaper than their English language couterparts.
Interestingly, the only postage marks on the box were Royal Mail, indicating that there must be enough people in the UK ordering from amazon.de for them to ship everything over together, then post it as normal.
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umm, if a shop ships to foreign countries, it usually has at least an English version of its page. Quite often other languages as well.
In the last 6 months, I've ordered more stuff from Germany than from shops in my country - simply because they did not have the products that I wanted, or had very long shipment times whereas the German shops had everything available in their warehouses, ready to be shipped.
The only thing holding back cross-border commerce in my opinion are worries about possible issues with warranty claims.
The language barrier is one reason.
The other one is that amazon crosses the barrier massively now. You do not need to go to a foreign language site, you can get the same item from amazon marketplace in your own language.
Looking at my purchases over the last 1 year, a significant number of them while bought on amazon.co.uk ended up coming from Germany: Daughter's scooter for her birthday (real one with inflatable tyres, not the sh*t you get from halfords), shelves, tools, electricals, bathroom hooks - you name it. One or two things came from France and a couple of smaller items from Holland.
The sole reason for me to look at foreign sites in the past has been artificial market barriers. You cannot get continentally aligned (for Left Hand Drive) headlights and spares as well as winter spares such as pre-heaters, etc in the UK. That is quite funny as some of the are made in the UK too. That is mostly gone now as well (again, courtesy of amazon marketplace), so why bother?
"You cannot get continentally aligned (for Left Hand Drive) headlights and spares as well as winter spares such as pre-heaters, etc in the UK. That is quite funny as some of the are made in the UK too"
Because the market for them in the UK is small, so once made they are boxed on pallets ready to truck to the continent. It's really not worth the manufacturer setting up a system to sell them directly to endusers in the UK, nor would most UK distributors want to take a pallet load "on spec".
It would surprise me if sites who want to sell within the EU did not provide English as a choice on their site. But I will agree about the postal part and the payment, I don't like PayPal. The address problem seems to be a more of a US problem where you have to enter the "State" than a EU problem. Then again if you don't know the name of the site then you won't use it. Much to improve no doubt.
"You obviously never ever had to deal with the French."
Or french who decide they can speak english perfectly well thank you very much and don't need native english speakers correcting them.
(Chinglish is a walk in the park by comparison. I had to rewrite French TRT technical manuals in the 1980s because the ones they supplied the telco I worked for were gibberish. TRT were "not amused" when they found out.)
> 13% of people can comfortably understand foreign languages.
13% of people know about Google translate AND have the nous to find the same product described in their native language AND manage to get a decent price for inter-country delivery charges AND trust "foreign" postal / courier services.
Sounds like a pretty high percentage, to me.
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Well, on the balance of probability I'd say yes :-)
But what she is saying is in direct contradiction of of the policy implemented by her predecessors. When I complain that Amazon France or Germany wouldn't see me things that were in stock in France or German but not in stock in the UK, whereas car companies have been fined millions for refusing cross border sales I was told that the commission didn't feel there was anything wrong with Amazon helping to create an artificial shortage in the UK for marketing reason. Go figure.
Fortunately other companies in German where more than happy to help me out and sell me what they had in stock.
So, please put your own house in order before giving the public a hard time for this.
Most intra-EU trading is done in english.
The big issues are what was raised by the Commish - traders limiting access, but also by banks slapping swingeing surchanges on when there are different currencies involved and the rather minor issue of "support" - particularly if it means tech have to come from the source country or kit has to be sent back there.
As a UK buyer I've been amused on more than on occasion by a UK reseller going ballistic upon being told that we're buying off another supplier in the EU - many seem to think that they have "exclusive UK sales rights" and we aren't legally allowed to cross the channel for stuff. My response in all cases has been "Feel free to take us to court - if you can find a lawyer who will take your case on."
"The European Commission is to probe the e-commerce sector to find out why people aren’t buying across borders."
Isn't it obvious?
I live in Danmark, we have a fantastic postal system as does the UK, but still It takes around 3 days to get a package from the UK to my door. If I order from Danmark I get it next day. That's point number one.
Point number 2 is on shipping restrictions, parcel force (for example) refused to send a package to me from my parents because it contained some aftershave in it, citing restrictions on the aeroplane...I took the same package back in my hand luggage via easy jet.
Point 3 is on delays when the country does not have a quick postal service (kind of the same as point 1 but 3-4 days is acceptable, 3-4 weeks to get a package from Spain to Danmark is not).
Point 4 is on delays caused by the tax offices in both countries seeing if they can in anyway get money out of you (something I have had to fight many times).
Point 5 is on the fact that my bank will charge me an extortionate rate for foreign payments. This is the most common reason for not wanting to purchase across borders when on line, it costs more.
So there is my 5 point report on the matter, can I have my €10mil consultancy fee now?
"As for delivery, you might get it quicker from china than France."
My wife buys a lot of stuff from China for her handicrafts. Shipping times are variable from a few days to a couple of months. But the P&P is almost invariably cheaper than sourcing from a local UK supplier. Even when the product is the same price (hah!), UK P&P shoves the price above importing from China.
It's always small, low value packages for personal use, so as far as we know, know VAT or other taxes are payable.
I was just totting up my Amazon buying experiences (UK, US, CA, FR, DE & JP) so far, the other day and marvelling at how easy it was, my browser translates every page pretty well, and they keep a consistent experience so even without auto-translation I've managed a successful purchase.
The problem is not usually Amazon, it's the suppliers who geo-restrict things, and often Amazon say this item can be shipped to you, you can even filter on ship internationally, but when you finally get your basket to the check you will be stopped.
I just bought a handheld games console from France, arrived in 4 working days, was £30 cheaper than amazon uk including delivery.
Amazon have got really bad recently. I often buy from the UK (where a DVD costs £2.50 instead of the 15€ here in Spain). Also Amazon UK has so many things that Amazon Spain does not.
Now they smack an instant charge on buying anything, and at the last minute say it can't be shipped to Spain, with a helpful link. The helpful link says that it can be shipped to Spain. If some Bozo came here, I'd explain the problems to him personally.
> The problem is not usually Amazon, it's the suppliers who geo-restrict things, and often Amazon say this item can be shipped to you, you can even filter on ship internationally, but when you finally get your basket to the check you will be stopped.
Strange, my experience is the reverse.
On a number of occasions, I have tried to buy from sellers on Amazon who state that they ship globally, only to be told by Amazon's website at the very last moment that it can't be shipped to me. Usually it is CDs or DVDs. It's becoming a bigger and bigger problem.
Also, this new legislation that they were talking about regarding VAT being charged at the buyer's country rather than the sellers is a big problem for small businesses. I can't see that helping much.
The VAT rules are:
They charge VAT in their home country (Luxembourg), unless their sales to the EU country in question are above the distance selling threshold for that country, which can be set at either €100,000 or €35,000, or the approximate equivalent in local currency. It is £70,000 for the UK and Isle of Man. For digital goods (apps, kindle books, mp3s etc), they must charge VAT in the customer's country regardless of sales level, and it is the same for goods subject to excise duty such as alcohol and tobacco, though I don't think Amazon sells them.
As Amazon likely sells more than £70,000 of stuff every hour, never mind every year, they do have to charge UK VAT.
"I was just totting up my Amazon buying experiences (UK, US, CA, FR, DE & JP) so far, the other day and marvelling at how easy it was, [...]"
Bought a CD from Amazon Japan - not cheap but not available in the UK. Their only shipping option for anything was courier - not cheap. When it arrived it fortunately was just under the UK Customs threshold. Otherwise the courier's paperwork informed me that they would have charged me £50 for clearing it and collecting the fee.
I never buy anything expensive from the USA for the same reason - even ordinary post can incur a Royal Mail "collection" fee of double figures. There's also the risk of a USA Amazon Partner labelling it as a "gift" at a much reduced value - and it's you who is then in trouble with HMRC for a false declaration.
Buying a DVD from Amazon France cost a small fortune in delivery charges - and it wasn't express either.
"When it arrived it fortunately was just under the UK Customs threshold. Otherwise the courier's paperwork informed me that they would have charged me £50 for clearing it and collecting the fee."
Other couriers have more reasonable policies. DHL for example.
The initial courier charge may end up a fraction higher, but not having to stump up £50 in ridiculous fees makes up the difference.
I'm sure that they can't justify this kind of rent-seeking, but I also suspect that noone can be bothered taking it to small claims to fight it.
In this order:
1) The site doesn't post to international addresses, even in the EU
2) Or if it does, the cost of P&P is silly expensive
3) Or the address details doesn't let you enter a foreign address
4) Or there is a problem processing the payment.
Ironically for small items it's often easier to order stuff from Hong Kong than it is from somewhere else in the EU.
Correct. It costs too much and takes too long to receive the goodies.
I have bought from the continent when I have had no other option, or when I have access to a delivery address in the same country, but on the whole it is simply uneconomic to do so, particularly for toys.
Also, I want instant gratification and I want it *now*.
"Ironically for small items it's often easier to order stuff from Hong Kong than it is from somewhere else in the EU."
And a damn site quicker! From recent experience.
As someone pointed out though - I can but something from Amazon Prime and have it next day - from Amazon SARL - in France. But you try buying through Amazon.fr and see how long it takes.
yep, if i can buy something in my own currency, from somewhere that I know abides by our country's sales laws that is coming quickly from near me, and paying local delivery costs then I'm not going to go elsewhere.
I occasionally get things from other european countries, but only when they aren't available locally
Isn't amazon.co.uk technically in Luxemburg?
In which case many brits buy from foreign sites. I suspect many other national Amazon sites are the same.
(And I think there are EU countries without national Amazon sites, for whom Amazon insists on charging excessive postage fees)
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