KEY ISSUES FOR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN THE G20

Despite the steady increase business-to-consumer e-commerce, there remains considerable untapped
potential. Well-tailored consumer protections and competitive markets are essential to build the trust
needed to further develop these markets for the benefit of consumers and businesses alike. More effective
implementation of consumer rights is essential for e-commerce to reach its full potential. Policy
frameworks in the OECD and UN offer an excellent starting place, but likewise require a greater
implementation commitment by governments.
Cross-border and cross-sectoral enforcement co-operation is but one area for further work. In an
increasingly data-centric environment, approaches like data portability offer promise but require further
study to ensure that they work for both consumers and businesses. At the same time, G20 economies
could usefully explore the issue of platforms and consumer trust with a view to assessing if concerted G20
action could help strengthen consumer trust.
Consumer choices in this information-intensive environment are impaired by challenges relating to
complexity and uncertainty, sometimes compounded by misleading or fraudulent business practices. The
expanding reach of platforms including peer platforms poses special challenges to consumer trust,
while at the same time opening up new opportunities.
Thirty-plus years of regulatory reform, coupled with the mainstreaming of the commercial Internet and mobile
technology, have repositioned consumers and their 60% share of GDP as pivotal. More than ever, active,
empowered consumers drive innovation, productivity and competition. As the G20 seeks to address issues of
inclusive growth, equity and fairness, the consumer trust agenda is moving to the frontlines, especially with
the arrival of hundreds of millions of new middle-class consumers from emerging countries.
Continued improvements in consumer access to broadband Internet, particularly through mobile devices, have
opened up global opportunities for business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce. More than 7 billion mobile
subscriptions worldwide were registered in 2015, up from less than 1 billion in 2000 (ITU, 2015). The
progressive lowering of trade barriers, the expansion and deepening of global supply chains and, perhaps most
importantly, the entry of consumers from emerging markets offer more opportunities for a truly global,
consumer-driven e-commerce marketplace.
In the United States, for example, the share of e-commerce as a percentage of overall retail has nearly tripled
over the last ten years (United States Department of Commerce, 2016). But it's no longer just the most
developed economies that are leading this change. In 2014, the initial public offering of the Alibaba Group a
Chinese e-commerce firm raised USD 25 billion, the largest in history of the New York Stock Exchange. As of
2013, China was the largest B2C market in the world both by number of buyers and overall revenues (UNCTAD,
2015). In Indonesia, social media is a key driver of e-commerce, where almost 9 in 10 online users have a social
media account (UNCTAD, 2015). Another key driver is the use of mobile devices: Indian companies Snapdeal
and Flipcart are estimated to take as much as 70% of orders via mobile phones (Meeker, 2015).
Although B2C e-commerce is growing rapidly, it is still a small share of overall retail sales. This is in part
because the growth of e-commerce markets for goods, services and information is closely linked to consumer