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A recent study shows that Europe is the largest eCommerce market in the world, overtaking North America in 2011. The total value of the European market was estimated at €246bn, and online retail sales account for around 5.1% of the total value of the retail market in Europe.Still, cross-border eCommerce falls behind its targets (20% in 2020) set by the European Commission in the Digital Agenda for Europe. Considering the potential savings of around 16% that can be made by shopping online, cross-border eCommerce has many untapped potential benefits.In 2010 the online retail market represents around 3.5% (almost €91 billion) of the total retail market in the EU (€2604,5 billion), but variations between the countries can be observed. The three largest eCommerce markets in Europe (United Kingdom, Germany and France) account for around 72% of all online sales that are made within the EU. Within the EU, eCommerce accounted in 2011 for around 14% of turnover for enterprises employing at least ten persons and has been relatively stable in the last three years. However, there are large sectoral differences in the use of eCommerce.Overall percentages show that 43% of Europeans have made online purchases from national sellers in the last year, which has grown from 30% in 2007. Regarding EU cross-border online transactions, figures from 2011 show that 10% of Europeans have made purchases online across borders in the past twelve months, and eight countries have 20% or more of their citizens purchasing online across borders.---Four possible policy options can be proposed based on this study:1) ‘Business as usual’: doing nothing (on the part of the EC) might not stimulate crossborder eCommerce in the way the EC would prefer. There needs to be a growth path to stimulate development. Doing nothing may lead to or continue the currentfragmentation of the EU eCommerce market, leaving the initiative to industry andlosing control of market failures which would determine a patchy development of trust services in Europe2) Self-regulation/self-organisation with some non-binding instruments such asstandards: the stakeholder group participating in the focus group considers a ‘selfconstructed federation’ of trustmarks the most feasible and useful option, as long as it remains voluntary, not mandatory. In this option, the two main players would be the EC and an Industry Forum. The operational rules would indicate the level of responsibility of each of the player. Here the role of EU institutions would be to merely facilitate the cooperation and talks between stakeholder representatives and the industry. The EC would take a small coordination role but no major organisation role.73) An European trustmarks accreditation scheme. The scheme would be based on ahierarchical ISO approach, and a European institution/ agency would take up thechallenge of accreditation. The development of a European trustmark accreditationscheme could start with the self-regulatory approach (policy option 2) and then further investigate whether the elaborated standard could be part of the Europeanaccreditation scheme. Also in this option, one of the main factors could be an Industry Forum where industry would organise itself under the guidance of the EU. The investment to achieve an EU accreditation scheme would be significantly higher and require a stronger role of the Commission in steering the contributions of the industry and the stakeholders.4) An EU-level trustmark: a European trustmark as a fully-fledged EU trustmark isproposed. European policy makers would set up a European trustmark, comparable tothe EU Ecolabel scheme, to be granted to traders. Such a trustmark would competewith existing trustmarks. The award would be following an audit based on a set ofrequirements and a code of conduct. Stakeholders would participate in setting up the trustmark. This theoretical option would require a major operational investment and go beyond the borders of policy making. Running a EU trustmark would meancreating a complex, multi-layered trust services body capable of operating in thewhole of Europe.The present final report discusses the four options, presents related evidence to allow a founded decision to be made by the European Commission.
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