Interview

New VAT ecommerce rules have come into force on the 1st of July. Now, all imported goods – also the ones worth less than 22 euros - are taxed with VAT. For dropshipping ecommerce companies things could get more costly, but not for retailers using dropshipping platforms that work with stock based in Europe like BigBuy. Ecommerce News Europe spoke with CEO Salvador Esteve.

Almost five years ago, Hubble Contacts turned the optical market upside down by supplying contact lenses directly to consumers. Nowadays the US company has hundreds of thousands subscribers in about 30 countries. Ecommerce News Europe spoke with Emily Sewell, Vice President Supply Chain.

Webador, the international brand name of Dutch website builder JouwWeb, is slowly expanding across Europe. The ecommerce software solution has released a French version of its service and is currently busy launching Webador.be, to better serve the French-speaking part of Belgium.

What can we expect from the ecommerce industry in 2020? Ecommerce News Europe spoke with Antanas Bakšys, CEO and co-founder of Lithuanian tech company SearchNode, about the latest ecommerce trends.

Danish ecommerce company Goodiebox is expanding in Europe. The beauty tech startup launched in Austria last week and just went live with pre-launch websites in Finland and Switzerland. Goodiebox will go live in these countries approximately a month from now, while the German website will be launched later this year.

Ecommerce software provider Intershop introduced its commerce-as-a-service solution in February of this year. This software solution is an important strategical milestone in the company's cloud-first strategy. Ecommerce News Europe interviewed Sales Director EMEA Gerrit Enthoven about the current state of affairs.

Ten years ago, Mister Spex disrupted the traditional optics industry by launching an online platform. Now, with over three million customers and, on average, 15,000 orders per day, the company has become the most successful online optician in Europe. Ecommerce News Europe interviewed Carsten Hennig, head of international at Mister Spex.

Micolet is a new online marketplace that sells second-hand clothing for women. What's interesting about Micolet, is that it enables customers from Europe to shop second-hand clothing from other countries.

This month, Swedish fashion retailer Chiquelle won the Global E-commerce Award at this year's Global E-commerce Summit. The company's pitch won 52 percent of the audience vote, thereby beating Indian online grocery store Big Basket and Swedish furniture manufacturer Ikea. We interviewed CEO and co-founder Pouya Boland about the award and the latest developments, including expanding to more countries.

Splitit enables consumers to pay for online purchases with interest-free monthly payments. The fintech startups lets consumers use their existing credit cards and divide the total cost up to 12 payments. Ecommerce News talked to the company, which is now aiming most of the marketing efforts towards Europe.

Picodi, a Polish website offering customers coupons from hundreds of retailers, has grown to become an internationally operating company. But while it was active in many countries, it also used a similar number of different names. It now operates in 32 countries worldwide under one name: Picodi.

Ecommerce companies can really make a difference nowadays if they use their data efficiently. But there's data everywhere and it takes some time and effort to analyze all this. A European startup that tries to solve this problem, is MonkeyData. This Czech SaaS company analyses data from various sources and shows the results in one place in an organized dashboard. We interviewed them about data, ecommerce software and the differences between some European countries.

What's the best software for retail businesses? IT research company Gartner tried to answer this question and came with an extensive report. It ranked ecommerce software provider Intershop third, behind the two retail software giants IBM and SAP. The German company is active for many years, but now it really seems on the rise, especially in mature ecommerce markets such as the Netherlands, Sweden and its home market Germany.

Viadurini is an Italian ecommerce company that sells designer & trendy furniture from Milan online. It has announced it will open an online store in the United States. The company is already available in many European countries. We interviewed Gianni Gozzi about the online furniture store.

Bol.com, the biggest online retailer in the Netherlands, is moving from being a traditional ecommerce player into a selling platform and fulfilment partner for third-party retailers. In an interview with Belgian newspaper De Tijd, managing director Daniël Ropers compared Bol.com with Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba. "We are building a network of expertise, retailers, services and products."