BeCommerce, the industry association for distance-selling in Belgium, has announced the launch of a new Index that will track online sales and identify e-commerce trends in the country. With many retailers looking to expand into international markets, the new BeCommerce Index will enable the production of data that is consistent and comparable with UK data.
“This is the first in a planned international series of Indexes. For British online retailers it’s an important step towards globally shared data that makes sense across all geographical origins,” said Andy Mulcahy, communications executive at IMRG. “We’re working closely with two other European countries trialling Indexes, and these could launch in the next few months. Many other countries will launch Indexes in the next few years.” Mulcahy says the Belgian Index shows a 25% increase in e-commerce sales in the year to April 2011.
UK e-retailers will benefit from the BeCommerce Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index because it uses the same metrics and definitions used to produce the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index. IMRG is committed to the international establishment of the Global E-commerce Measurement Standard (GEMS). GEMS was introduced by IMRG at the eBizEU conference in Lille last October, setting out a list of definitions for the measurement and monitoring of business-to-consumer online commerce. At the conference, GEMS received the initial support of industry associations representing 75% of European e-commerce.
James Roper, CEO of IMRG, said: “IMRG is delighted to be supporting BeCommerce’s new e-sales Index, which will provide our dynamic and fast-growing industry with the very latest insight into how Belgian e-retailers are performing. e-Commerce is transforming the local and global retail marketplace, so it is vital that we acquire sound, usable, cross-comparable data to help us understand and manage e-retail for the benefit of all. The IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index, which this Index is modelled upon, has been the primary performance indicator of the UK online shopping market for the past 11 years. Looking forward, it will be fascinating to see how the performance of the UK and Belgian e-retail markets compare.”
