Cross-border

In the financial year 2023/2024, the whole European online cross-border market achieved sales of 326 billion euros. A large majority, 69 percent, or 225 billion euros came from online marketplaces.

This integration offers SAP Order Management Foundation customers the opportunity to further optimize multichannel operations across more than 950 sales channels worldwide. It also includes new AI-features. Support for OMSA is on the way.

This week, the list of the 30 fastest-growing Dutch cross-border sellers was announced at the CrossBorder Event in Utrecht. Jewelry brand Notbranded landed in first place, followed by Cloudpillo and Wristler.

Mytheresa, the luxury ecommerce platform rooted in Germany, saw its revenue increase by 9.8 percent in the past fiscal year. Sales especially surged in the second half of the fiscal year, and profitability also improved over the course of the year.

The European online fashion, beauty and luxury market generated a turnover of 213 billion euros in 2023. The cross-border share of that market was 38 percent, representing 82 billion euros. The market is expected to grow.

Ecommerce giant Amazon is launching an exporting tool called Export Central. This allows sellers to reach more customers in Europe, even in countries without localized Amazon stores. Thanks to the tool, sellers do not have to duplicate their listing or register new accounts.

Trendyol, a major ecommerce player from Turkey, is developing plans to build a regional logistics center near the Romanian capital, Bucharest. The company aims to serve all of southeastern Europe from the new logistics hub, which will employ 250 people when fully operational in 2025.

Omni-channel retail brand Ochama has announced that it will expand its pickup point network into France. It is also introducing next-day home delivery all throughout the country, for more than 1,000 selected products.

Kaufland has opened the virtual doors of its marketplace in Austria, the first country where the brand does not have physical stores. At the launch, Kaufland.at offers more than three million items from three thousand different sellers.

Ceconomy, the owner of MediaMarkt and Saturn, has had a strong quarter. Its own online sales increased by almost 10 percent. Additionally, MediaMarkt is growing thanks to external online sales partners: the trading volume on its marketplace has more than doubled in a year.

The Turkish government is implementing drastic tax changes to reduce online consumer orders from foreign online stores. Import duties are set to rise significantly, while the exemption threshold will be lowered. Additionally, an extra tax will be introduced for certain product categories.

Online fashion platform Zalando increased its revenue with 3.4 percent in the second quarter, compared to that period last year, to 2.6 billion euros. It also improved its profitability again. As a result, the company has confirmed its expectations for the full financial year.

Next reflects on a successful half year. The British retailer has revised its profit expectations upwards. While pure players Asos and Boohoo, also from the United Kingdom, struggle to maintain their online sales, Next continues to grow digitally, especially abroad.

German SMEs on Amazon have seen their international sales grow by 10 percent over the past year. Together, they earned 5.5 billion euros in cross-border sales. "Exporting via Amazon is the easiest growth opportunity for German SMEs”, headlines the American company.

The European Parliament has made some progress in its proposal to simplify VAT rules for ecommerce imports. It wants to remove the threshold of 150 euros for import duties. Negotiations are still ongoing, but it has now been decided that the proposed changes will come into effect by March 2028.