The Council of the European Union has agreed on further measures to improve VAT collection on online sales in the EU. According to their proposal, the digital VAT Import One Stop Shop (IOSS) will need to be expanded. In the future, platforms and suppliers will be able to account for VAT on high value goods on this system as well.

EU consumers spend a disproportionately large share of their online fashion budgets abroad. Fashion accounts for 46.2 percent of all online spending at non-EU retailers, followed by electronics as the second-largest category.

Dutch online marketplace Bol is not growing as fast as it did last year. Its own sales have stagnated, but sales by partner sellers on the platform continue to grow significantly. Even with fewer partner sellers.

This week, the European Commission has approved the takeover of Ceconomy, the owner of MediaMarkt and Saturn. Chinese ecommerce giant JD.com is acquiring the company. The Commission has added conditions to the deal. For example, JD.com needs to provide warehousing and logistics services to third-party retailers.

Zalando is expanding its product range with items from other online stores, starting with Westwing. An AI shopping agent will eventually place orders on participating external websites, without customers having to leave the Zalando app. The German company aims to generate revenue from Zalando Extended in two ways.