The Campaign for Consumer Choice
by Chris Dawson
Earlier this year a petition signed by over three quarters of a million Europeans was presentated to the EU Parliament. The petition called for amendments to EU competition law to stop brands from restricting the sale of their products on the internet. A new Campaign for Consumer Choice website has been launched to continue lobby for changes to support online businesses and enable them to trade without unfair restrictions.
Although online trade has been around for many years, and eBay has been in the UK for over 10 years, it’s still early days as far as EU trading laws go. They’re quite simply out of date and were largely written before online buying and selling really took off.
The Campaign for Consumer Choice website is calling on EU politicians to bring European law up-to-date with the internet age. If you’ve not already signed the petition you can Show your support for free trade on the internet by signing up to the Consumer Choice campaign.
12 Responses on "The Campaign for Consumer Choice"
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Just read the the first article in the “latest news” section “6 out of 10 European shoppers are blocked from purchasing their favourite products abroad” Does that mean that the campaign would be against eBay’s newly introduced feature, which allows you to block shipping to specific countries (including individual EU member states)?
These new Blocks are to allow sellers to be able to choose which countries they are willing to ship to, For example if you offer free shipping for European Customers, Royal mail for instance have different rates of shipping for Western and Eastern Europe, You might wish to Block Eastern European Country’s (as yor postage is going to be higher than the budgeted Western European postage) as Ebay does not take this into account.
Unfortunately also some Country’s have a terrible track record for postage so you might wish to not ship there to save items getting lost in the post.
A seller should be able to choose where they wish to ship to, restricting a sellers shipping options is a different matter altogether.
Which Eastern European Countries have a different Royal Mail postal rate?
The point I was trying to make is that the ability to block sellers does restrict trade within the EU and worldwide and may cause frustration to some overseas buyers.
I wasn’t actually making a judgment on whether this is a good thing or not.
The only country that has a terrible postal service in Europe is the UK.
As for different rate within Europe, don’t know where that one comes from, it’s either UK, Europe or Worldwide. Russia is a bit of an oddity eBay wise as it shows up twice in the countries you can block.
post Italia takes some beating when it comes to terrible
They have 100% record here… of losing my parcels. *weeps*
Italy has to be the worst. I had a parcel turn up 87 days after posting (send RM International Signed For)!
UK = 9/10
Germany = 9.5/10
France = 6/10 (esp outside Paris)
Scandinavia = 9/10
Belgium / Lux = 9/10
Spain = 7/10
Portugal = 7/10
Italy = 5/10 (worse the further south you go)
I have taken the view only to block African countries (for obvious reasons), and not block e.g. Italy where competitors have done. Sales have increased in Italy for sure. I try to send via courier to Italy (it costs me about £16) – so I lose some revenue, but the customer is amazed when it turns up 5 days later (probably expecting it 2 weeks later!!)
Jimbo: Sometimes a UK product is not suitable in other European coutries so the block is required in this instance to protect buyers and sellers.
Paul the block is not item specific and can be implemented by any seller on any item. It limits the ability of some of our European neighbors to take advantage of some of the amazing deals that are available on eBay.co.uk. It also may cause frustration for European eBay users as they may be restricted from purchasing items that are not readily available in there own location.
Incidentally there are many items being sold on eBay.co.uk by overseas sellers, which should be blocked, as they do not comply with UK law.
Most of the Ebay sellers were afraid NOT to sign Ebay’s petition in case they were banned by Ebay’s Gestapo.
well that has to be the most ludicrous thing I’ve read in a while.
Reply to Earl.
As Jimbo was hinting at, as far as I’m aware Royal Mail don’t charge a different rate for ANY Eastern European country. (Parcel force are rates are different,but that is probably also the case for different countries in Western Europe)
Unless you are getting confused by the Ebay way of thinking. They, for example officially regard Russia as being outside of Europe and therefore checkout will charge Russian buyers the Rest of World rate. But RM treat the whole of Russia as Europe rates