A. General Information
EU4Digital e-commerce cooperation
B. Lessons Learned
EU4Digital has launched its eCommerce pilot, establishing national virtual warehouses in the pilot countries (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia) to support retailers, marketplaces, delivery operators and customs to place the products for sale abroad and facilitate cross-border delivery.
- Strengthen eCommerce ecosystem and increase eCommerce volumes; - Increase the awareness and support to prepare to the 2021 eCommerce VAT package introduced in the EU; - Address the existing challenges for cross-border eCommerce trade.
Underdevelopment of e-commerce ecosystems and platforms.
Customs processes and e-commerce logistics.
During the pilot, sellers from the Eastern partner countries accomplished the following: 1. Product placing in the virtual warehouse. Sellers use the newly-established national virtual warehouse to add products for online sale in Germany. Sellers create a centralized product listing to describe products both to list on the marketplace as well as for the customs purposes. 2. Product listing on the German marketplace. Next, the harmonised product listing on the virtual warehouse is sent to German eBay to place products for sale on the marketplace. 3. Product purchase. Once a purchase happens on eBay, the piloted virtual warehouse automatically generates a mandatory and necessary data for customs, import duties, transport security and product safety documentation in real time. 4. Exchange of product data. Generated data is shared by the piloted solution with the logistics and transport provider so that they can complete the physical delivery of purchased products to buyers. This way, sellers enter product data only once in the virtual warehouse, and the virtual warehouse shares this data to complete the transaction.
Customs data, import duties, transport security data, product security documentation.
The piloted virtual warehouse supports sellers to enter digital data about products only once and facilitates the exchange of this data with the post and the customs. The project measures how eCommerce solutions can be introduced in the Eastern Partnership countries and how to launch successful electronic commerce between the EU and the Eastern partner countries. eCommerce offers new opportunities for businesses, consumers and retailers. Through the use of innovative eCommerce solutions, the notion of ‘border’ can be significantly reduced by harmonizing relevant ecosystems, legislation and standards. For this, the results of the pilot project provided the appropriate recommendations.
EU4digital support to its eastern partners.
As the next step, EU4Digital is launching the pilot between Azerbaijan and Georgia in the beginning of June to explore how the virtual warehouse can support eCommerce in the Eastern partnership region. After the completion of the pilot, the EU4Digital team will provide further recommendations regarding the required legal, organizational and technical changes in order to adopt the piloted solution in production as well as scale-up in other Eastern partner countries.