4 ms·

Lacklustre cross border commerce is among the reasons why successful companies in one European country have trouble scaling up and competing with American giant

by blfr 12y ago

Lacklustre cross border commerce is among the reasons why successful companies in one European country have trouble scaling up and competing with American giants who by default start in a market with over 300M people. Google's internal response[1] covers it inadvertently. They show stats for various European markets with competition in the shopping category, mostly with other American companies. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9377951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9377951

skrebbel 12y ago
> Lacklustre cross border commerce is among the reasons why successful companies in one European country have trouble scaling up and competing with American giants who by default start in a market with over 300M people. Yes, but search is very low on the list of industries where that matters. Plenty European internet companies have trouble getting outside their founding country, sure, but the trouble is language, culture, lack of a unified media landscape, etc, not VAT rules. Anybody who tells you different is just trying to find a scapegoat for their inability to execute cross-culture. This indeed makes Europe a more difficult starting point, but good luck fixing that with politics.
- blfr 12y ago
  The whole started with Google's addition of shopping results to their regular search results and later expanded to Android, I think.
  - skrebbel 12y ago
    Yep, and this article recommends that Europe improve cross-border internet shopping rules to somehow "fix" the fact that the monopolist in search is not from Europe.
    - blfr 12y ago
      Yes. Large European platforms wouldn't need Google. You would just go straight to your favourite when looking to buy something. Like many Americans go to Amazon.
    - makomk 12y ago
      Their biggest competitor, who filed the anti-trust complaint in question and are the most likely winner from all this, is Microsoft. They're also not from Europe.
makeitsuckless 12y ago
Yeah, because that's what Google, Twitter, Facebook and all do "cross border commerce"... Not to mention the fact that before the digital age, when all international commerce actually involve moving physical goods across physical borders, Europe had no problem scaling up to multinational corporations.
- blfr 12y ago
  Look through that linked article. Ebay and Amazon dominated German and British markets. Their business includes getting physical goods to customers. European giants are largely hold-outs from a different age[1] (full article[2]). The decline didn't start with the Internet. [1] https://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/290-width/images/print-edition/20120728_FBC674.png https://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/2... [2] http://www.economist.com/node/21559618 http://www.economist.com/node/21559618
rbehrends 12y ago
> Lacklustre cross border commerce is among the reasons why successful companies in one European country have trouble scaling up and competing with American giants who by default start in a market with over 300M people. While it would be nice to get the VAT problems sorted out, this is second to the problem of there being a couple dozen different languages being used in the EU. People shop domestically because they can use websites in their native language and when they have problems, can talk to customer service representatives in a language they understand. It is really, really hard to get your service localized in couple dozen different languages (let alone provide actual customer service in all of them). Even Amazon handles only a part of Europe, and if Amazon can't do that, what companies can? There are a few, but not all that many, and for many it isn't worth it, because your economies of scale quickly disappear when you have to build and maintain a separate presence in up to 28 different countries that mostly speak different languages. (That includes American companies, too, by the way, many of which simply choose to ignore Estonia or even Sweden and Portugal.)
- rjtavares 12y ago
  If the problem was the need to maintain a specific presence, then they would let me use the english language version of the website. But they don't. I'm tired of "This content isn't available in your country" and "we can't ship x item to your country" messages...
  - musername 12y ago
    localization has to deal with differing laws, too. Differing customs in general.
- noir_lord 12y ago
  Not to mention Germany has 85 million, United Kingdom 65 million, France 65 million etc. That is a big enough user base to have a successful business for most general retail without requiring cross borders. If you look Amazon is most active in foreign countries with English as a first language, that's not a co-incidence it's simple cheaper to do business.
- 12y ago

by blfr 12y ago

skrebbel 12y ago

> Lacklustre cross border commerce is among the reasons why successful companies in one European country have trouble scaling up and competing with American giants who by default start in a market with over 300M people. Yes, but search is very low on the list of industries where that matters. Plenty European internet companies have trouble getting outside their founding country, sure, but the trouble is language, culture, lack of a unified media landscape, etc, not VAT rules. Anybody who tells you different is just trying to find a scapegoat for their inability to execute cross-culture. This indeed makes Europe a more difficult starting point, but good luck fixing that with politics.

blfr 12y ago
The whole started with Google's addition of shopping results to their regular search results and later expanded to Android, I think.
- skrebbel 12y ago
  Yep, and this article recommends that Europe improve cross-border internet shopping rules to somehow "fix" the fact that the monopolist in search is not from Europe.
  - blfr 12y ago
    Yes. Large European platforms wouldn't need Google. You would just go straight to your favourite when looking to buy something. Like many Americans go to Amazon.
  - makomk 12y ago
    Their biggest competitor, who filed the anti-trust complaint in question and are the most likely winner from all this, is Microsoft. They're also not from Europe.

makeitsuckless 12y ago

Yeah, because that's what Google, Twitter, Facebook and all do "cross border commerce"... Not to mention the fact that before the digital age, when all international commerce actually involve moving physical goods across physical borders, Europe had no problem scaling up to multinational corporations.

blfr 12y ago
Look through that linked article. Ebay and Amazon dominated German and British markets. Their business includes getting physical goods to customers. European giants are largely hold-outs from a different age[1] (full article[2]). The decline didn't start with the Internet. [1] https://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/290-width/images/print-edition/20120728_FBC674.png https://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/2... [2] http://www.economist.com/node/21559618 http://www.economist.com/node/21559618

rbehrends 12y ago

> Lacklustre cross border commerce is among the reasons why successful companies in one European country have trouble scaling up and competing with American giants who by default start in a market with over 300M people. While it would be nice to get the VAT problems sorted out, this is second to the problem of there being a couple dozen different languages being used in the EU. People shop domestically because they can use websites in their native language and when they have problems, can talk to customer service representatives in a language they understand. It is really, really hard to get your service localized in couple dozen different languages (let alone provide actual customer service in all of them). Even Amazon handles only a part of Europe, and if Amazon can't do that, what companies can? There are a few, but not all that many, and for many it isn't worth it, because your economies of scale quickly disappear when you have to build and maintain a separate presence in up to 28 different countries that mostly speak different languages. (That includes American companies, too, by the way, many of which simply choose to ignore Estonia or even Sweden and Portugal.)

rjtavares 12y ago
If the problem was the need to maintain a specific presence, then they would let me use the english language version of the website. But they don't. I'm tired of "This content isn't available in your country" and "we can't ship x item to your country" messages...
- musername 12y ago
  localization has to deal with differing laws, too. Differing customs in general.
noir_lord 12y ago
Not to mention Germany has 85 million, United Kingdom 65 million, France 65 million etc. That is a big enough user base to have a successful business for most general retail without requiring cross borders. If you look Amazon is most active in foreign countries with English as a first language, that's not a co-incidence it's simple cheaper to do business.
12y ago