It’s now official – over half of people buying anything, online or in a shop, use the Internet to sanity check prices beforehand. 55% of people look online before committing to purchase, says new research from Bitkom. We believe new rules from the EU could jeopardise this valuable source of information.

The research included only people who were over 14, and found that not only did people research price but also other people’s opinions. Elderly people in particular are likely to be swayed by user reviews.

As you move into other online sources of information like chat rooms and user groups the number decreases – but it’s pretty clear, the online world is a major source of information for people about to buy something.

Once again this is an area of personal freedom that is under threat from Europe’s Vertical Restraints Regulation. This is something we’ve covered before and it will allow brands to discriminate against companies that don’t have offline retail premises.

The whole thing’s a nonsense. A buyer in London won’t be interested in whether or not a supplier has retail premises in Oslo or not, and is likely to be baffled that premises, which might be miles away, are a factor in their ability to compare prices and opinions.

This does appear to be a pernicious piece of legislation – and there are only days left to make your opinion felt.

Concerned about the world economy? You should be, if reportage worldwide is anything to go by.  So it’s good to be able to report on an area that’s growing by degrees – and baffling that the EU seems bent on damaging it.

The growth area is online retail. Newly-published intelligence from respected commentator Forrester points to double-digit growth for the next five years both in America and Western Europe. American online retailers will grow an average of 10 per cent a year for the next half decade while Europeans outstrip even that with 11 per cent. France will do particularly well, growing at 13%, while Germany grows 9% and the UK 10%.

Forrester believes that to make the most of the growth, e-sellers will have to give consumers the choice of how they want to buy things. This will include all manner of online buying including mobile phones, maybe the new Apple device and the PCs that exist at the moment.  The analysts also make the point that a choice of ways to buy is actually the only way some consumers can get at certain goods.  The presence of online retailers increases choice, simple as that.

It should be an explosion in growth: the average spend from an online shopper was €483 in 2009 and will be €601 in 2014, with books, tickets and clothing leading the charge.

This sort of growth is undoubtedly going to play a major part in bringing the Western world out of recession. This is why it’s incomprehensible to the Campaign for Consumer Choice that new laws are emerging within weeks that could force online companies to limit their growth by spending on offline retail premises as well.

We sincerely hope these proposed laws will be amended to allow online, offline and mixed channel outlets to compete fairly and without restriction, and benefit the consumer in the process.