Cross-channel

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.

Online retailer Otto and shopping center operator ECE have formed joint venture Stocksquare to link offline and online shopping. The goal is to boost offline sales at ECE shopping centers and to expand Otto's online assortment.

Tendam, the Spanish fashion retail group that was formerly known as the Cortefiel Group, saw its online sales grow by 29.4 percent last year. Online sales now account for almost 8 percent of the company's total sales in Spain.

About three in four business-to-business companies in Poland sell their products or services online. The majority of those retailers have been involved in ecommerce for over five years now, while half of Polish B2B companies also operate internationally.

Lentiamo, the largest online contact lens retailer in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Italy, wants to become the European market leader for eye care. The online store generated a turnover of 27.3 million euros in 2018 and wants to grow further, among other things with their own solution Solunate and by selling their own line of contact lenses.

How omnichannel-ready is Switzerland? That's what mail-order association VSV tried to find out with the Omnichannel Readiness Index. It shows the DIY & Home Improvement sector in Switzerland scores best on omnichannel maturity. Jewelry retailers and department stores are strong omnichannel players as well.

Swiss Post is testing a new device that makes shopping online a lot easier. Around 1,000 households in Switzerland can order products and services by using the Post Home Button, which is nothing more than a small device with a button. Migros Aare, Qualipet and Domino's Pizza have also joined the experiment.

Mybudapester.com, an online shop for designer shoes, bags and accessories, is focusing more and more on attracting international stationary retailers to its platform. Up to 15 new German retailers will go online on the fashion platform this year, but international dealers will also be connected towards the end of this year.