At the Global E-Commerce Summit in Barcelona in June the Cross-Border Award will be handed out to Euope's best in class e-Commerce web shop. In advance a longlist was drafted.The web shops on the longlist "will be evaluated against a model known as 'ShopExperience'*, with checks carried out against more than 300 different dimensions and prioritisation by a GfK consumer panel. 5 nominees will be selected over the course of this activity! These 5 nominees will be invited to come to the Global E-commerce Summit and their ShopExperience Report will be judged by the professional jury who will announce the bronze, silver and gold winners on the night of the 3rd of June during the European E-commerce Award ceremony."

Industry organization Thuiswinkel.org awarded Takeaway.com the Cross Border E-Commerce Award."Takeaway.com particularly impressed the jury with their well-developed, omnichannel marketing concept that is optimally adapted to its respective target markets."

During a ministerial session at the European Consumer Summit in Brussels European Ministers assessed cross border e-Commerce.

Lithuanian Vice Minister for Justice Paulius Griciunas: "“Most consumers are not confident purchasing from other member states because they don’t know what do do if something goes wrong."

Kjetil Andreas Ostling, Norwegian State Secretary to the Minister for Children, Equality and Social Inclusion: "In many countries it has not been a priority to enter a dialogue with traders. infringement is not neccessarily always a result of bad will, but of retailers not aware of the legal situation. Guidance to the traders should be increased. Businesses should be ensured a level playing field in Eruope, and that can be done through proper enforcement."

"Marie- Josee Ries of the Luxembourg Ministry of Commrce, stressed that she believes consumers in fact do want to buy across borders, but that retailers are confronted with fragmented legalisation and can thus not offer staisfactory conditions."

An online Cross-border Webshop Register has opened recently. The register is an initiative by Ecommerce Europe.

"The register gives an overview of webshops that sell online products and/or services to consumers in two or more European countries. More than 150 webshops have already registered within two weeks."

"The aim of the Cross-border Webshop Register is to increase the visibility of cross-border webshops for European consumers, stakeholders and politicians. For cross-border webshops the register provides an unique opportunity to become visible and present themselves at an European level."

Registration is free.

The European Commissiuon is to crackdown on unfair B2C e-Commerce practices which it sees as a serious barrier for EU cross border e-Commerce.

Five years ago the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive was introduced which included "a general prohibition on unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices. its provisions are bans on misleading consumers by making fraudulent claims about products, and on aggressive marketing practices such as 'fake free' offers, hidden advertising, direct marketing to children and 'baiting' consumers with attractive offers that the trader is unable to supply in quantities based on the scale of the advertising."

Now a report by the European Commission  is published on the working of the Directive. It states that "consumers and traders were still uncertain about how the rules would be applied by national enforcement bodies. In addition, member states had raised concerns over lack of resources and effective sanctions."

EU Justice Commissioner Vivienne Reding comments: "We have good rules in place to protect consumers, but we need to make sure they are better enforced, especially in cross-border cases. I want to see zero tolerance for rogue traders so consumers know exactly what they are buying and are not getting ripped off. That also means a coherent approach to enforcing the same set of rules."