Posts by Pleuni

Ecommerce giant Amazon is not opening new logistics warehouses in Spain until 2024. The company was planning to build on land of around 150,000 square meters in the country, but is now pausing those plans. The pause is caused by inflation and drop in consumer demand.

Swedish parcel delivery services Instabox and Budbee are announcing a merger. Together, they will continue under a new holding: Instabee. The new company is valued at 1.7 billion euros.

Slovenian startup CartBoss, which offers automated abandoned cart text messages to online stores, is now installed in over 4,000 online shops. The company is a year and a half old, but already has over 500 customers. With new features coming out this year, it expects to continue growing its customer base.

The Ukranian government has launched an online marketplace called Made with Bravery. Brands and makers from the Ukraine can sell their products on the platform. Of every purchase, 5 percent is donated to the United24 platform, which collects donations to help rebuild the country.

The European online fashion retail market is set to grow 50 percent by 2025. The online turnover of this market will reach 175 billion euros, which equals 33 percent of the retail branch’s total. Cross-border marketplaces are the biggest drivers behind these growth.

Online B2B transactions in Poland are estimated to be worth 130 billion euros in 2021. This is an average year on year growth of 8.4 percent, when compared to the total market value in 2016 of 555.3 billion euros. Between 2016 and 2021, the market has grown 41.8 percent.

The Dutch National Hotline for Internet Scams is warning consumers about new fake online stores, claiming to sell firewood and wood burning stoves. With energy prices rising all across Europe, the department expects more of these online shopping scams.

Ecommerce giant Amazon has acquired Belgian mechatronics specialist Cloostermans. It is unclear what amount was involved in the deal. Amazon will scale up its robotics operations with Cloostermans’ technology.

Last year, one out of four packages were returned in Germany. This comes to an estimate of 530 million parcels, with 1.3 billion items. Returning goods is part of consumer protection. On the other hand, the amount of returns brings high costs for sellers, as well as a large carbon footprint.

The operator behind Pigu and Hobby Hall Group (PHH Group), well-known marketplaces in the Baltics, has partnered with SME Finance. Together, they are launching collateral-free revenue-based financing (RBF) to marketplace sellers. Merchants can get access to financing within the same-day of their request.

eBay Germany is launching a financing solution with online loan provider Iwoca. The loan service is called eBay Flexi-Kapital by Iwoca. Sellers on the marketplace will get access to funds within 24 hours after their request.

Dutch platform for returned goods New Returns, active in the Netherlands as 2dekansje.com, is expanding internationally for the second time in one year. It is launching in France with a different trade name, 2echoix.fr. The launch follows an earlier German launch with bwareshop.de in March.

Spanish fashion marketplace Nerety has raised 200,000 euros in its second investment round. The capital injection will be used to scale the company’s turnover. It also wants to expand internationally into Italy, Germany and the Netherlands.

Curated fashion platform Farfetch has bought a 47.5 percent stake in Yoox Net-A-Porter Group. It is unclear what amount of money was involved in the acquisition. Because of the deal, Farfetch can acquire the remaining shares later on.

Logistics company PostNord Finland is rolling out an outdoor parcel locker network all over the country. The company will use SwipBox’s parcel lockers. Customers can use access the lockers 24/7 in convenient locations.