Internet sales have increased in the UK by 19% on last year, and March of 2009 showed a 9% increase month-on-month compared to February. Some UK companies have seen opportunities in other European markets where depending on the product certain European countries react very positively. For some businesses their internet sales have increased as much as 85% in the case of a garden supply company, 53% for a pet product company and the gift sector has seen an increase of 118% on last year.

A variety of companies who sell well known brand names items such as sportswear and gadgets have found great success in the Scandinavian countries where English is widely spoken and the cost of living more expensive. Other gift and homeware companies have done well in countries like France, Belgium, Holland and throughout areas of Europe where there are ex-pat communities. There are various opportunities across Europe that currently only a small percentage of online businesses are seizing.

Some European countries are underdeveloped as far as online shopping goes and one good example of this is Spain. To take the example of about a year ago, some friends who are living in Spain wanted to buy some sunbeds for their house. With Spain being a hot country one would imagine that sunbeds are an item that is in demand and therefore easy enough to access on the internet. Their experience was that some of the websites were very nicely designed but had no online shopping cart facilities, others didn’t even include prices. On one of the few websites where it was possible to see good quality photos, prices and to order online, the prices were exhorbitant, which defeats the purpose of buying online.

Comparing a search on the pay per click advertising between U.K. and Spain, for “party dresses” which is a high traffic term in the U.K., with lots of relevant ads and competition. The search in Spain in Spanish shows a few ads that are of lower copy writing quality and only have 3 pages of sponsored links as opposed to 22 pages in the UK sponsored links. Naturally the population is higher in the U.K. So this can account for some of the difference but not all of it.

Another funny issue is that when you search for “spanish olive oil” on the pay per click advertising there is currently only one producer from Catalonia, but who is actually based in Wales. Other than this there are distributors advertising and a stronger presence of Greek and Italian olive oil. The list is endless, these are just a few examples that with Spain being the largest producer of olive oil, a sunny climate where sunbeds are demand and a country where the girls love to dress up, for these reasons the examples are especially relevant.

One more example was looking for professional power tools. Choosing a few of the best known brand names the experience was quite similar to that of the sunbeds. What was available on the internet with the relevant information could not be classed as a good deal, so the local supplier was the better option.

These small stories show that there are many opportunities in Spain but what a person does need to bear in mind is that Spain still has the manana (tomorrow) attitude. Foreigners trying to seize these opportunities by themselves could be extremely frustrated and indeed even find it difficult to get a business up and running!

Jackie de Burca is co-owner CWA Europe who can help those looking for internet business opportunities

in Spain.

One example is a recently launched makita herramientas e-commerce shop, makita tools in English.

[tags]makita, makita herramientas, makita tools[/tags]