Swedish companies, for example, have adapted readily to the idea of rolling out different Web sites for additional countries, generally keeping the same look and feel. Swedish dot-coms are increasingly eager to enter new markets. Early entrants like Bokus, launched in 1997, waited a year before adding a new country. Western Europe should have more than 215 million users of the Web on at least a quarterly basis by 2003 compared with 197 million in the United States, according to IDC s Internet Commerce Market Model Version 6.1 . Barriers The forecast size of Western Europe s ecommerce market is impressive, but the region also demands that companies make significant investments to tailor their products and Web sites to the individual countries.
Payment systems vary from country to country.
Some countries have proprietary credit and debit card systems, others have very low credit card penetration, the report advises. Web sellers need to take into account all these factors. Also, Web users are apt to be online for brief spans of time because of the phone charges. Three-quarters of the European Internet users surveyed said they use the Internet half an hour a day or less. About one-quarter of the Western European population above the age of 15 had used the Web within the three months prior to the Fall 1999 survey.