Today was the first full day of the 2nd annual Global E-Commerce Summit held in the amazing Grimaldi Forum in beautiful Monaco.  Below are highlights from the morning sessions.

Click here for pictures from the event.

François Momboisse Vice President of EMOTA and Susanne Czech, Secretary General of EMOTA, opened the Summit and shared data on European and French e-commerce:

• Europe is expecting 12% e-commerce growth in 2009
• French e-commerce is up 25% in 2009
• Average order value is down
• 23.5 million online buyers in France, which is up 44% in the last 3 years
• C2C commerce such as eBay and Priceminister are enormous in France – market leaders

Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne followed with a thought provoking keynote presentation that was a mixture of the Overstock.com business and Mr. Byrne’s concerns about the U.S. capital markets.   He painted a dim picture of the next 10 years, and when asked where he invests his money given his concerns about the economy he said that it is a combination of Overstock.com stock and gold.

Allan Christiansen,  CEO, Telmore, shared his thoughts on how to build “extreme customer satisfaction.”  Telmore answers 80% of customer service calls within 20 seconds, far faster than its competitors.  One of his most compelling quotes was that “customer loyalty is not how loyal a customer is to a company, but how loyal a company is to a customer.” 

Stay tuned for more blogging from the event.  You can also follow the event on Twitter (hashtag #GES09).