Ecommerce and Retail Industry

Eight countries were selected for reviem as part of the benchmarking study. Countries selection was based on the following criteria: - To provide a broad geographical coverage including, Europe, Asia, North America and Australasia, - To select countries where the consultants could leverage off their existing knowledge base, - To select countries that were active in e-Commerce and where experiences might prove useful to Iran. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD) in their paper Electronic Commerce Strategies for Development of E-Commerce 2002 surveyed the e-Commerce strategies of 5 1 countries lo identify the consistent policy areas. These policy areas were used to define the scope of the benchmarking studies to ensure a consistent and comprehensive approach across the 8 countries.