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Neelie Kroes says ecommerce needs serious broadband bandwidth
Improvements to online shopping will require greater bandwidth, according to EC vice president Neelie Kroes.
Some 40 per cent of European citizens use the internet to buy goods and services each year, but Ms Kroes warned several concerns still exist about the sector regarding issues such as delivery times and the safety of online payments.
Consumers also worry about what to do if there is a problem with their order, she claimed, while others may find themselves unable to track down the content they are looking for and turn to illegal sources.
These problems mean many people do not feel comfortable buying online - particularly across national borders - and have resulted in ecommerce representing just 3.4 per cent of all European retail trade, which Ms Kroes described as a "huge lost opportunity".
If this figure rose to 15 per cent, consumers would benefit to the tune of more than €200 billion (£165 billion), she claimed.
In order to encourage growth in the sector, the EC has published a 16-point action plan that it claims will double the volume of ecommerce activity across the EU by 2015.
To drive the adoption of virtual services that can be purchased via the web, such as online gaming and video and music streaming, greater broadband bandwidth will be required, Ms Kroes insisted.
"We need to ensure we can provide that infrastructure, through broadband rollout and spectrum provision," she remarked.
"Likewise, we need to look ahead to future developments and make sure our strategy makes it easy to develop and use cloud services."
Figures published last month by Experian Hitwise illustrated the current popularity of ecommerce in the UK, with Brits racking up a total of 13 million hours on internet retail sites on Boxing Day.
A total of 96.2 million visits were made to these sites across the day, up by 19.5 per cent year on year.