BERLIN -- Boo.com's demise may have spooked Internet businesses all over Europe, but on the opening day of this week's Internet World trade show at the Berlin Messe, giddy talk of big growth still dominated.
"By no means does boo.com declaring bankruptcy mean that consumer demand will slow as well," Nicole Vanderbilt, a vice president of the e-commerce analyst Jupiter Communications, said at a workshop on the opening day of the three-day event.
In fact, Jupiter predicts that the total number of money spent on European e-commerce will rise from 2.9 billion euros ($2.6 billion) last year to 64.4 billion euros in 2005.
That is just the sort of rosy talk that makes an event like Internet World tick. There are more than 350 exhibitors covering 21,000 square meters, compared to 300 exhibitors spread out over 15,000 square meters last year.
But this is not an event designed for the public, like the massive CeBIT computer fair in Hannover every year. Internet World expects only 1,600 convention attendees this year -- compared to 26,000 "professional visitors" -- and the tone is appropriately boosterish.
"ALL IMPORTANT DECISIONS REGARDING THE INTERNET ARE MADE IN BERLIN," declares the Internet World website.
"To develop the perfect Internet website, a business has to find the right partners," goes the pitch. "Internet World Berlin 2000 provides that latest knowledge on the Internet more concentrated than any other German trade fair."
Schmoozefests have their place in business, of course, and the mood still seems to be get-while-the-getting-is-good. That's true despite the example of boo.com, the British online sportswear retailer. It was seen as one of the bright stars of Europe's startup scene until announcing last week it was being liquidated just six months after launch.
"Certainly, the capital markets are starting to fall out of love with their once-poster childs," Vanderbilt said.
But the next few years still promise to make a lot of fortunes, she said, as long as dot coms are willing to learn some lessons both from outfits that fail, like boo.com, and from traditional businesses.
Her company researched European e-commerce and produced surprising results on how companies were doing in the all-important area of fielding customer complaints. Jupiter emailed 69 European companies with standard customer-service questions, and found that nearly half (46 percent) either never responded or took five days or more. Fewer than a third (30 percent) responded within one day.
"This is a huge symptom on the Internet," Vanderbilt said.
It's also part of a larger pattern, she said, in which Internet companies have focused too much on marketing without spending time on retaining customers and building relationships with suppliers.
It takes time to build an online customer base, Jupiter said, since the longer people have been using the Internet, the more likely they are to buy online.
The figures from the United States are striking. Among people who have been online for less than a year, 24.9 percent have made a purchase using the Internet. The percentage jumps to 56 for those who have been online two years or more.
Given the lower number of Internet users in Europe, those are important numbers because Jupiter says the gap is narrowing. The firm predicts that by 2003, 41 percent of Europeans will shop online, compared to 54 percent in the United States.
