UPU News:-Effective coordination and trust hold answers to global e-commerce success

Facilitating global e-commerce will require robust IT infrastructure, better partnerships and standardized customs, payment and delivery processes, stressed keynote speakers today at a major forum on e-commerce held at UPU headquarters.

More than 250 delegates from the postal and e-commerce world gathered to hear industry leaders discuss how they could work together to deliver on the global e-commerce promise and enable this business to flourish like its domestic counterpart.

With business to consumer online sales expected to peak at 1.5 trillion USD this year, UPU Director General Bishar A. Hussein underlined the importance of efficient and effective partnerships with all stakeholders in the global e-commerce supply chain. “From e-tailers, logistics, airlines and customs to payment agents and transporters handling the last-mile delivery and return services, all must work together to ensure the free flow of items and availability of services to citizens around the world,” he said. “The postal network is an essential link in this global supply chain,” he added.

New development phase

Posts worldwide are natural partners for the delivery of goods bought online and they want to make e-commerce as easy as possible, especially for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). The latter stand to gain a lot from the growth of e-commerce and have always relied heavily on postal services for their success.

One key to success is getting merchandise through customs as fast as possible.  Kunio Mikuriya, secretary general of the World Customs Organization, lauded Posts’ efforts to increasingly send advance data about incoming parcels, thus accelerating customs procedures for customers’ benefit. “A strong partnership between Posts and Customs is essential for e-commerce to grow,” he said.

For his part, International Telecommunication Union Secretary General Hamadoun Touré said trust and security were foundations of e-commerce. Today, the UPU and the ITU committed to developing international standards for financial transactions, especially mobile payments, and testing new business models for sustainable connectivity. “Posts and telecommunications share a common and mutually reinforcing future as we work towards connecting all of the world’s people to the information society.”

From a trade perspective, Anne Miroux, director of the division on technology and logistics at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said e-commerce was opening a new development phase for Posts.

But Miroux recognized that e-commerce poses several challenges for developing countries, especially least developed ones. “E-commerce is the business of the future, and you’re either ‘in’ or ‘out’,” she said.

For the developing world, technological infrastructure and effective regulation instilling confidence in e-commerce are essential. “Effective networks must enable access to information technology, the Internet and mobile services, and least developed countries don’t have access to these.”