The last 15 years have shown a great increase in eCommerce, and nowadays eCommerce is really big business. Actually the Chinese eCommerce company "Alibaba" is the world's largest retailer and the eCommerce business is still growing rapidly (growth rates of 15% or more in many countries). The new forms of trade are emerging because technology is developing at breakneck speed. All together this has brought about a multitude of new possibilities and at the same time a need for new skills among the workers in the online shops (webshops). The association FDIH (the Danish industry association for eCommerce companies) have made an extensive survey among its members. The results of the survey show that 41% of the companies lack skills in their actual workforce.19% of the survey participants have given up hiring qualified staff. FDIH conclude, that there is a high demand for basic trade skills. First and foremost it is a great wish (83%), that employees are skilled in marketing and marketing optimization. 35% of them want skills within customer service. Both these areas are usually covered within the existing curricula, so we need to challenge the exisiting teaching material and the online shops. Ecommerce Europe has made a survey in 2016 showing that online merchants with cross-border ambitions are often held back by barriers such as legal uncertainty due to unclear or very different rules, taxation and payment systems that differ greatly, or high prices of delivery due to a lack of transparency in the market. Other difficult barriers to overcome when selling abroad are related to (online) payments, competition issues, language, client relationships and marketing. From an educational point of view we need to learn more about how to educate the future workforce in the eCommerce industry. Through this project 30 eCommerce teachers from six different VET institutions in five different EU countries will exchange their knowledge and good practices in eCommerce teaching, and they will visit in total 30 web-shops in the five participating countries. Through this they will learn a lot about eCommerce issues taught in the other countries, as well as they will be provided with the latest up to date knowledge and the educational needs from the companies. The teachers will be taught by each other through job shadowing and through extensive meetings with the web-shop companies and each other. Furthermore 60 VET students will participate in the project, doing a 14 days mobility mostly. They will stay at the hosting school for a couple of days and the rest of the periode they will tbe hosted by a web-shop. At the webshop they will stay in pairs and solve a specific company case for the web-shop and at the same time take part of everyday life in the webshop. Because of this the students will have a heightened opportunity to learn from the webshop companies directly through internships. Finally the students will have a good opportunity to widen their own network and global mindset. It is the primary objective of the PEAL project to provide the partnership schools with knowledge and inspiration through exchange of good practices and discussions with each other and with the web-shops involved. We expect every partner has already made changes in their eCommerce teaching material, when the project has finished. Furthermore we will have a virtual community filled up with good ideas and lessons learnt. The management of the partnership schools will indeed benefit from the project. They will be able to ensure, that their education will be up to date and at the same time according to rules and regulations of their respective country. Whenever a team of teachers and students are back home, there will be a meeting with the participants, the PEAL project manager and the management. The outcome will be discussed at the next project meeting. Throughout the lifetime of the project there will be six project meetings - one at each institution. Each meeting will be either for planning and preparation of the next mobilities or for sharing experiences between all project partners, and to make (preliminary) conclusions. We are convinced we have made a strong and reliable project consortium with a good methodology for carrying out the project activities as well as managing the finances and quality. All partner schools are all very experienced in international activities, including mobility projects. All partners have a good relationship to the labour market and the companies in their area. Because of these experiences and circumstances we truely belive it won't be a real problem for us to find good web-shops to be part of the PEAL project, and we will address this as one of the first issues, when the project starts. The potential longer term benefits will be VET schools continuously providing the eCommerce industry with a workforce, which is very well equipped to handle the rapidly changing challenges in the webshop business.
The last 15 years have shown a great increase in eCommerce, and nowadays eCommerce is really big business. Actually, the Chinese eCommerce company "Alibaba" is the world's largest retailer and the eCom-merce business is still growing rapidly (growth rates of 15% or more in many countries). The new forms of trade are emerging because technology is developing at breakneck speed. All together this has brought about a multitude of new possibilities and at the same time a need for new skills among the workers in the online shops (web shops). The association FDIH (the Danish industry association for eCommerce companies) have made an extensive survey among its members. The results of the survey show that 41% of the companies lack skills in their actual workforce.19% of the survey participants have given up hiring quali-fied staff. FDIH conclude, that there is a high demand for basic trade skills. First and foremost, it is a great wish (83%), that employees are skilled in marketing and marketing optimization. 35% of them want skills within customer service. Both these areas are usually covered within the existing curricula, so we need to challenge the existing teaching material and the online shops. Ecommerce Europe has made a survey in 2016 showing that online merchants with cross-border ambitions are often held back by barriers such as legal uncertainty due to unclear or very different rules, taxation and payment systems that differ greatly, or high prices of delivery due to a lack of transparency in the market. Other difficult barriers to overcome when selling abroad are related to (online) payments, competition issues, language, client relationships and marketing. From an educational point of view, we need to learn more about how to educate the future workforce in the eCommerce industry. Through this project 20 eCommerce teachers from six different VET institutions in five different EU countries exchanged their knowledge and good practices in eCommerce teaching, and they visited in total 21 web-shops in the five participating countries. Through this they learned a lot about eCommerce issues taught in the other countries, as well as they were provided with the latest up to date knowledge and the educational needs from the companies. The teachers were taught by each other through job shadowing and through extensive meetings with the web-shop companies and each other. Furthermore 49 VET students participated in the project, doing 14-days LTTA. They stayed at the hosting school for a couple of days and the rest of the period they were hosted by a web-shop. At the web shop they stayed in pairs and solved a specific company case for the web-shop and at the same time taking part in everyday life in the web shop. Because of this the students had a heightened opportunity to learn from the web shop companies directly through internships. Finally, the students had a good opportunity to widen their own network and global mindset. It was the primary objective of the PEAL project to provide the partnership schools with knowledge and inspiration through the exchange of good practices and discussions with each other and with the web-shops involved. We expect every partner has already made changes in their eCom-merce teaching material, when the project finished. Furthermore, we now have a virtual community filled up with good ideas and lessons learnt. The management of the partnership schools indeed benefited from the project. They are now able to ensure, that their education is up to date and at the same time according to rules and regulations of their respective country. Whenever a team of teachers and students were back home, there was a meeting with the participants, the PEAL project manager and the management. The outcome was discussed at the next project meeting. Throughout the lifetime of the project there were six project meetings - one at each institution. Each meeting was either for planning and preparation of the next mobilities or for sharing experiences between all project partners, and to make (preliminary) conclusions. We were convinced we had made a strong and reliable project consortium with a good methodology for carrying out the project activities as well as managing the finances and quality. All partner schools were all very experienced in international activities, including LTTA projects. All partners have a good relationship with the labor market and the companies in their area. Be-cause of these experiences and circumstances, we truly believed it would not be a real problem for us to find good web-shops to be part of the PEAL project, and we addressed this as one of the first issues, when the project started. The potential long-term benefits for the VET schools is the possibility of continuously providing the eCommerce industry with a workforce, which is very well equipped to handle the rapidly changing challenges in the web shop business.