New platform wants to boost cross-border ecommerce in Europe

Cross-Border Commerce Europe is a new initiative from Carine Moitier, who co-founded Belgian ecommerce association BeCommerce in 2005. With this online platform, she wants to help international retailers to perform better on the European ecommerce market.

The cross-border ecommerce market in Europe has a lot of potential. It was worth 121 billion euros last year and estimates are it will be worth double, 245 billion euros, in 2022.

The new initiative focuses both on online-only retailers and omnichannel players and is meant for B2C and B2B retailers. “Nowadays, the line between online and offline has vanished. Even pure online players such as Amazon are going offline, while typical offline retailers like Ikea are now delivering online orders at home”, Moitier explains.

Retailers need better information

Although there are several pan-European associations that focus on helping retailers, Moitier thinks there’s room for one more. “We’ve noticed that many companies are in a need of concrete information with regards to their European activities. For example, there is a European label, one sticker to get the order from the warehouse to the end customer, but many retailers don’t even know this exists. We will also keep track on all things related to e-fulfilment, online payments and ecommerce laws.”

Focusing on Western Europe first

For now, the project is focusing on Western Europe and it’s currently active in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the Benelux.