A recently-adopted EU regulation has ensured that, from now onwards, it will be easier for consumers and businesses to compare cross-border parcel delivery prices. In this way, they will possibly be encouraged to make more online purchases or sales than ever before.
High prices of cross-border parcel delivery have been identified as being a considerable deterrent for consumers and small- and medium-sized companies to engage in e-commerce. Such prices do not always truly reflect the underlying costs involved. Indeed, the European Commission has noted that it is common for the price of a comparable standard 2kg parcel to be very high from one country and way lower from another, even if both have similar labour costs and the parcels travel a similar distance.
E-commerce has become an indispensable tool for most consumers
The new regulation seeks to remedy the current situation by primarily ensuring price transparency and improving regulatory oversight in the EU cross-border parcel market. Parcel delivery operators will, for the first time, have to submit a set of basic data including delivery tariffs for those services which are mostly used by consumers and SMEs to national regulatory authorities.
Only those parcel delivery service providers that only operate in one EU country and employ fewer than 50 people will be exempt from this obligation. The national authorities will then transmit such information to the European Commission.
The latter will, each calendar year, publish the information given and, in particular, the parcel delivery tariffs on a public website for the perusal of the public. Such increased price transparency ought to help users choose the best delivery rates and hence stimulate competition within the market in question.
In the case of those service providers that provide services which are subject to a universal service obligation, the national regulatory authorities will assess whether their tariffs for cross-border parcel delivery services are unreasonably high.
The regulation does not fix prices as such. However, the authorities are empowered to assess whether the tariffs being imposed by such a provider are affordable and linked to the actual cost of the service being given.
The regulation also reiterates online traders’ obligation to provide consumers with clear information on prices charged for cross-border parcel delivery and customer complaints procedures. Measures such as these seek to ensure that the benefits of a European single market can truly be garnered by European citizens and businesses.
In today’s fast-paced life, e-commerce has become an indispensable tool for most consumers and the elimination of any deterrents to such mode of trading ensures its success.
Mariosa Vella Cardona is a freelance legal consultant specialising in European law, competition law, consumer law and intellectual property law.
mariosa@vellacardona.com