Cross-channel

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.

Zalando has announced the expansion of its Connected Retail program to three new markets in Europe. Retailers based in Poland, Sweden and Spain will be able to connect their inventory to the online Zalando platform.

Google has acquired Pointy, a startup that helps physical retailers with showcasing their products online. Pointy has been a partner of Google for years, for the search engine's "See what's in store" section that is shown on business profiles on Google search.

AliExpress is going offline. The popular Chinese shopping platform has opened a physical store in Madrid, the first of its kind in Europe. The store actually operates more like a showroom, because products still need to be ordered online.

Online optician Mister Spex has raised over 65 million euros in an equity round led by the Büll Family Office. With the fresh funding, the German company wants to accelerate its international growth and expand its retail network.