Cross-channel

Inditex, the major clothing retail group from Spain, is now charging a fixed fee for online returns. The owner of brands such as Zara, Pull & Bear and Bershka is implementing this change in 30 countries. It wants to motivate customers to return items in brick-and-mortar stores.

H&M is bouncing back from the pandemic: in 2021 the fashion retailer made 1,36 billion euros in pre-tax profits - a sixfold increase compared to the year before. Their online branch remains strong, though, growing 30 percent in the past year.

Ceconomy, the German mother company of electronic stores such as Mediamarkt, made one third of its profit from online sales in 2020. Their online revenue increased more than half in the last year. The numbers are clearly a result of coronavirus-related measures.

Charity shops in the United Kingdom are looking more and more at ecommerce after losing thousands of euros of income during the lockdowns. The number of items sold online by British charity shops has increased by 151 percent between February and July of this year.

Live shopping in Europe is becoming more and more popular. This trend started in China and the rest of Southeast Asia, but now consumers in Europe are increasingly watching live shopping events to get inspired to buy some clothes and other fashion items.

Aldi seems to prepare for a better ecommerce strategy. Aldi Süd is gradually rolling outs its globally uniform IT system across its shop network across 20 countries. The discounter is laying the groundwork for ecommerce.

Oveit, an ecommerce tech startup from Romania, aims to raise 450,000 euros through an equity crowdfunding campaign on the local platform SeedBlink. Oveit is known for its live stream shopping service called Streams.live, which lets retailers sell directly to consumers through live video sessions.

The German E-Commerce and Distance Selling Trade Association (Bevh) wants a temporary lifting of the ban on Sunday work in retail and logistics. The association thinks that, especially with regards to the upcoming Christmas shopping period, this is necessary to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Inditex, the major clothing company from Spain, has shown some strong growth online. The retail group is taking more and more steps in its digital transformation and that's not without results. For the first time, Inditex processed one million orders in one day.

German DIY-store Hornbach saw its online turnover increase significantly during the Covid-19 outbreak in Europe. The company quickly changed its click-and-collect model and also tested a home delivery model where its own store employees took care of the deliveries.

Everli, the Italian ecommerce marketplace formerly known as Supermercato24, has announced a partnership with Kaufland in Poland. The partnership allows people from 17 cities in Poland to order groceries from a Kaufland store through the Everli website or app.

Fashion retailer Mango will share a part of the turnover generated by ecommerce with its franchisers. Initially, Mango will do this only in the Netherlands, Spain and France, all markets where the company has many franchisers.

In April it was announced that KaDeWe wanted an online shop. And now it's there. The ecommerce website from the famous Berlin department store starts with 3,000 articles from 100 different suppliers.

Italian department store Rinascente has launched its first online store. The ecommerce website is part of parent Central Group's omnichannel strategy. Rinascente's online shop is only aimed at Italian customers for now.

Inditex, which owns eight brands including Zara and Pull&Bear, will close up to 1,200 stores. Instead, the fashion giant has unveiled a digital platform while it wants to further boost its digital transformation.