Research by the German Federal Association of Ecommerce (BVOH) has found that 2,000 manufacturers are impeding European ecommerce by imposing restrictions on online retailers who want to sell their products. The study questioned over 7,000 small ecommerce businesses and found that over half of them were suffering financially and losing sales as a result of the restrictions. The most commonly cited restrictions were manufacturers refusing to allow retailers to set their own prices, refusing to allow retailers to re-sell on online marketplaces, and banning cross-border ecommerce. BVOH has asked the EU to look into the problem and has called on them to ban manufacturers from imposing restrictions on ecommerce sites.
