Acquisition

Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof has acquired multichannel retailer Sportscheck from the Otto Group. The Otto Group decided to sell its daughter company, because it thinks this gives Sportscheck the best possible chance of long-term business viability.

French supermarket retailer Carrefour is ready to sell its online shop Rue du Commerce. Only three years ago, Carrefour acquired consumer electronics retailer Rue de Commerce, but now it wants to focus more on food instead of electronics.

Supermercato24, an Italian same-day delivery service for online grocery, has announced the acquisition of Szopi, an on-demand grocery delivery service from Poland.

H&M continues to invest in Sellpy, an online platform for second-hand fashion. The Swedish fashion retail group started investing in Sellpy four years ago and has since then joined all investment rounds. Now, H&M has become a majority owner, with an approximate 70 percent stake in the re-commerce platform.

Ecommerce Europe and EMOTA, the two biggest European ecommerce associations, will join forces. The merger will become fully effective as of 1 January next year, with the two associations continuing under the name 'Ecommerce Europe'.

Dutch food delivery group Takeaway has confirmed it wants to acquire its British competitor Just Eat. If Just Eat and Takeaway successfully end talks, the combined company will be one of the largest food delivery companies in the world.

Etsy, the global marketplace for handmade and vintage items, has acquired Reverb. This is a six-year old company that enables people to buy and sell new, used, and vintage music gear. The deal is for about 246 million euros in cash.

Dutch ecommerce company All4running is expanding to Germany. With the acquisition of German competitor 21Run, All4running is further shaping its ambitions to become an important running specialist in Europe.

German fashion start-ups Outfittery and Modomoto are merging. Exact deal terms were not disclosed, but for sure the new company will operate only under the Outfittery brand in the German-speaking countries, the Benelux, Sweden and Denmark.

Delivery Hero has bought another competitor in Europe. This time it's Swedish food delivery service Hungrig.se. As a result, the German company is now active with three different brands in Sweden.

The Delivery Group announced it has acquired independent postal management provider Onepost. It's unknown how much the UK postal and ecommerce operator paid for Onepost, but it will bring together two major players in the British mail and ecommerce sector.

Ant Financial, the Alibaba-owned fintech company, has acquired currency exchange and payments company WorldFirst. By taking over the UK company, Chinese internet giant Alibaba can take a major step into Europe.

UK fintech company SumUp, which enables small business to accept card payments via the SumUp device and online, has acquired Shoplo. This is a multi-channel ecommerce platform from Poland. With Shoplo, retailers can easily open their store online.

Essilor International is actively expanding its footprint in Europe and Latin America with four different acquisitions. In Germany, the optics company acquired online retailer Brille24, while in Greece, Essilor partner Shamir acquired Union Optic.

Nets, a payment service provider from the Nordics, has announced its strategic alliance with Przelewy24. This is a major online payment service provider from Poland. This news comes after Nets recently acquired Dotpay/eCard.