Cross-border

Amazon has announced the launch of its Pan-European Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) program. The American retail company gives European sellers on its Amazon Marketplace the opportunity to have them deliver the goods to customers in other European Union countries. This way, the American retail giant hopes to dominate online deliveries across the continent.

Caliroots, a Swedish online retailer of streetwear and sneakers, has launched a tailored ecommerce website for the Dutch market. According to Caliroots, the Netherlands has been on the company's list of top 10 markets for a while and now they are launching Caliroots.nl, in Dutch and with the popular local payment method iDeal.

Paydirekt, the online payment service of the German banks, wants to expand its service in Europe. The planned expansion isn't something that will happen very soon, but in the medium term the payment solution, which started as a PayPal rival, should be available for customers outside of Germany.

The US Customers and Border Protection have announced it increases the limit on duty-free purchases from the European Union from 200 to 800 dollars. In practice this means American online shoppers can buy more expensive stuff from European merchants without paying duties and taxes. So ecommerce companies in Europe could be expecting more US customers this year.

Just 56 percent of small and medium-sized online businesses in the United Kingdom sell to customers abroad. That's significantly less than in other major online retail markets. But at the same time there is a high customer demand for British goods. Free shipping could be the answer, PayPal suggests.

Geo-blocking, which prevents consumers to purchase consumer goods and accessing digital content online from a certain country, is widespread in the European Union. A survey has shown that 38 percent of retailers selling goods and 68 percent of retailers selling digital content said they geo-block consumers located in other EU member states.

Bloomon, a Dutch company that sells fresh flowers online on a subscription basis, has expended its territory to Denmark. Now people of this Nordic country can choose between a small, medium or large bouquet of flowers and get it delivered to their homes weekly, every fortnight or monthly until they no longer want to use the service.

Slightly more than half of active traders on Amazon's German marketplace actually come from Germany. In absolute figures, it concerns about 27,000 German retailers. For comparison: on eBay Germany, there are about 122,000 German suppliers active. One in five retailers who sell via Amazon come from the United Kingdom and more than 9 percent comes from Asia.

The British online retailer AO World has opened its online store in the Netherlands. After launching in Germany last year, AO now wants to sell household appliances like washing machines and refrigerators to Dutch consumers. It will try to beat the local competition with a best price guarantee, free delivery and trade-in of old products.

After successfully launching its new ecommerce sites in Germany and Switzerland, Douglas is now ready to roll out new online stores across Europe this year. Target markets include Norway, Czech Republic, Poland, Spain, Portugal and Italy.

Consignor, a delivery management software company founded in the Nordics, has entered the British market. In the UK, it wants to help companies to streamline their shipping process. The expansion is the result of an increasing demand from customers and partners to support that market in the platform.

Online fashion and lifestyle retailer Lesara has expanded to France. By opening a dedicated website here, Lesara could potentially reach more than 66 million new customers. In just two years' time, the German discounter is now active in 22 countries across Europe.

The domestic ecommerce market in Russia increased from 560 billion rubles in 2014 to 650 rubles last year. It now accounts to 2 percent of the total retail industry in Russia, so there is still great growth potential. And while the domestic market is slowing down, cross-border purchases continue to grow rapidly.

The European Commission has completed an econometric study on parcel list prices. It found out that on average, cross-border prices for parcels are 471 percent higher than their domestic counterpart. For letters, cross-border prices are 324 percent higher than their domestic counterpart. And it's not primarily due to higher unit labor costs in the destination country.

Fitle, a startup from France that aims to simplify the shopping experience, wants to expand its offer to Germany. In September of this year, the virtual fitting room app should be available for consumers in Germany. Originally, the launch there was planned for this month.