E-Commerce Scenario in Developed Markets
The United Kingdom, in our opinion, has an expanding e- commerce market. It has the unique distinction of being the fastest growing e-commerce market apart from being the largest online retail market in Europe. E-commerce sales in UK were over 48 billion pounds in 2007. The e-commerce market in UK is expected to grow at a rate of 40% per year. Germany is the second largest market in Europe boasting of E-commerce sales of well over 13 billion Euros.
The e-commerce scenario in the whole of Europe looks quite bright. European B2C ecommerce sales are expected to grow at an annual growth rate of 25% per year over the next five years and by 2011 the market is expected to reach nearly 323 billion Euros. Presently, UK along with Germany and France dominate nearly 72% of the total e-commerce market in UK. However this figure is expected to go down as other European nations join the e-commerce bandwagon.
However, the UK ecommerce market dwarfs when we compare it to other developed markets like the US. The US ecommerce market crossed the US $1.3 trillion mark way back in 2003.Most companies in UK have been slow when it comes to e-commerce adoption as compared to their counterparts in the US. Inspite of being a global leader in mobile telecommunications technology; the United Kingdom has not been able to capitalize on its strengths and still lags behind some countries in e-commerce development. Familiarity with English language and high levels of internet penetration are some other factors which have not been leveraged to full effect by companies in UK for e-commerce development.
Not all sectors of the UK economy have embraced e-commerce. Sectors such as financial services, insurance, air travel conduct nearly 30 to 40 percent of their sales via the electronic mode. Other sectors have been slow when it comes to technology adoption and have therefore lagged behind in e-commerce adoption. However, the future appears to be quite bright as the UK government is taking a pro-active role in e-commerce development. It aims to make the United Kingdom the 'best online market place in the world' and has initiated several measures to boost ecommerce.