Posts by Pleuni

In 2022, 74.8 percent of Belgian consumers shopped online. This is a higher share than the European average of 68 percent. While Belgians prefer shopping locally, when they do place cross-border orders, these are usually in other countries within the European Union.

In the first quarter of this year, almost eight out of ten Dutch consumers bought something online. This is a small increase compared to the same period in 2022 (74 percent). The current rate of online shoppers is close to the rate in 2021, when it was 77 percent.

Fashion retailer Zara is planning to expand its pre-owned clothing marketplace Zara Pre-Owned across European markets in the second half of this year. One of the selected markets is the Netherlands. The platform is currently available in the United Kingdom.

Ecommerce fulfillment company Huboo has raised 33.7 million euros (29 million British pounds) in a new funding round. This brings the company’s total amount raised to 141.8 million euros (122 million British pounds).

Dutch fulfillment company Salesupply has added another new fulfillment location to its global network. It is located in Lyon, France. The warehouse is 15,000 square meters, which gives the company the opportunity to process higher volumes in that country.

Last week, the European Parliament voted in favor of a revision of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive. According to the revision, all packaging needs to be reusable or recyclable by 2030. The revision has been criticized by several parties, since the EU has not set uniform logistics standards across Europe so far.

Last week, the winners of the biggest competition for online sellers in the Adriatic region were announced. The main award, Best in Adriatic, went to Slovenian online store Malinca. In total, 242 online stores from Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia entered the competition.

Dutch discount platform iBood is expanding into a new European market, France. The platform is already active in four other markets, in addition to its home country. It will now provide daily discount deals to French customers.

In 2021, MediaMarkt entered the top 3 German online stores with the highest turnover. In doing so, it pushed out Zalando. Amazon is still leading the ranking with 15.68 billion euros.

Secondhand fashion platform Vinted is considering a secondary share sale, worth more than 200 million euros. The platform, which is currently operating at a loss, is looking into its capital structure. This means that is currently not planning an IPO.

Belgian consumers spent 7.9 billion euros online in the first half of this year. This is an increase of 9.4 percent compared to the same period last year. For the first time, more was spent on services than on products.

Based on turnover, many of the 30 biggest brands sold on Dutch marketplace Bol are brands that sell products in consumer electronics and domestic appliances. However, when looking at the amount of sales brands in toys and personal hygiene dominate the top-30. At the same time, brands that are sold by Bol itself have 64 percent share of the total turnover.

Online supplier of prefabricated wooden buildings, Pineca, is launching an online store in Sweden. It is the company’s third expansion in Europe in the last 12 months. It already has plans for a future expansion to Austria.

Last year, the total online cross-border market in Europe generated a turnover of 265 billion euros. At least 63 percent, 167 billion euros, was generated by marketplaces. These data include global cross-border sellers, such as Amazon and AliExpress.

French software solution for services marketplaces, Scnd, has raised 4 million euros in a funding round. The company wants to use the capital injection to expand its ecommerce solution, as well as strengthen its position in the market.