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European shoppers looking to purchase products from other EU countries on the Web are likely to fail three times out of five, according to a European Commission study on cross-border consumer e-commerce, published yesterday.

Such failures occur when an online retailer does not accept international payments or is simply not prepared to ship its products abroad.

To research the phenomenon, the Commission carried out a ‘mystery shopping’ study where shoppers across the EU attempted to buy a list of 100 popular products, ranging from cameras to CDs, books and clothing – from a retailer in a different Member state. In total, over 11,000 test orders were carried out and what the study found was that no less than 60% of transactions could not be completed because of inadequate payment options or limited shipping abilities.

Hence, the EC concludes that three out of five cross-border purchases fails, which it rightly identifies as a big problem.