Cross-border

The ecommerce market in Germany is one of many opportunities. The second largest ecommerce industry of Europe is expected to achieve 15 percent year-on-year growth in 2015, reaching a value of 47 billion euros. A new guidebook helps companies who want to sell online in Germany.

Deutsche Post has launched an additional service called Ländernachweis, which is aimed at retailers that ship articles from Germany to other countries. With this service, both sender and recipient are still able to view the shipping status of the item when it has crossed the border.

Lesara, a Berlin-based online fashion and lifestyle retailer, has announced it will now also supply customers in the United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Bulgaria, The Republic of Ireland, Romania, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, Poland, Czech Republic, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

EasySize, a Danish data-driven company that tries to solve the sizing and fitting issue in fashion ecommerce, has entered the Swedish market last month, but is already busy planning other launches. The company has announced it will expand to Europe's three biggest ecommerce markets: the United Kingdom, Germany and France.

PayPal has launched its educational website PassPort in Belgium. The site is meant to help merchants getting more global sales and expanding their profit potential. With different free tools merchants learn more about season sale peaks and holidays, buying patterns and global trends.

The 100 biggest online stores in Belgium generated a total revenue of 2.6 billion euros in the period 2014-2015, which is a huge increase from the 1.1 billion euros they generated last year. But almost 72 percent of this revenue was generated thanks to foreign customers. Belgium is still a country where local retailers don't play a very significant role, although this is changing slowly.

La Redoute, one of the largest online fashion retailers in France, has found a new official distributor for its brands in Romania and Bulgaria. Online store Click4Fashion is now the only online store in these two Eastern European countries who can guarantee delivery of La Redoute products that are ordered online in Romania and Bulgaria.

Online fashion retailer Zoot from the Czech Republic launched an ecommerce website in Romania. The entry on the Romanian market happens after an investment of about 8 million euros which Zoot wants to use to expand across the country. Zoot makes it possible for customers to order different sizes and colors and only pay for what suits them.

Alibaba Group has announced a partnership with several top brands in the Netherlands. As a result, Philips, Nutrilon and Albert Heijn among others, will be introduced to the ecommerce player's huge Chinese customer base. Tmall Global is expected to open new flagship outlets for some major Dutch supermarket brands.

Consumers in Switzerland can now order products from the German, French or Italian Amazon and get it delivered for free. At least, if the value of their shopping cart is worth 49 euros or more. This will have a huge influence on the Swiss ecommerce industry, Netcomm Suisse says. "It will raise the bar in competitiveness, but will also push ecommerce operators to further improve their offer."

Cross-border purchasing is an increasingly significant driver of ecommerce growth in Europe. More than half of the 240 million online consumers across the continent have purchased online from other countries. It's no surprise about four in ten global merchants, acquirers, PSPs and consultants believe that merchants should focus on Europe when considering cross-border ecommerce.

Chinese ecommerce company Alibaba is about to open offices in Europe, in an attempt to attract more sellers to the platform. The ecommerce player wants to be the ‘gateway to China' for merchants from Europe and wants to achieve this by opening offices in Italy, France and Germany.

ITinSell, a French company that sells delivery tracking tools designed for online retailers, has launched in the United Kingdom. After opening offices in Paris, Lille, Lyon and Barcelona it now launched its operations in London.

Showroom, a Polish platform that gathers a selection of independent fashion brands, is going abroad. It has launched in Germany under the same name. Showroom doesn't hold any stock, but orders are shipped directly by the designers in branded boxes. All products are produced in the European Union, so customers buy true European fashion via Showroom.

Almost one in eight Polish internet users, and one in four online consumers, shop on foreign websites. And the people who do this, mostly shop cross-border for clothes and accessories. Also media like books, CDs and films and multimedia like apps and e-books are among the most popular products Poles buy on foreign websites.