Cross-channel

It's great to see new shopping technologies arise on the horizon, but this also means consumer expectations have shifted. They now want online retailers to offer them an enhanced and more consistent shopping experience across channels.

British department store John Lewis delivered more online orders by click & collect than by home delivery for the first time. Last year about 54% of its online orders were delivered to the store for consumers to pick up.

Bricks-and-mortar retailers are increasingly being challenged by online retailers. But they won't win the battle if they just join the ecommerce industry. In order to increase market share again, retailers need to combine online and offline sales channels effectively. Here's how.

The ecommerce industry in France could grow by 10 percent this year. Thanks to a growing number of online offers, the arrival of new shoppers and a rise in transactions online retail sales in France could reach 62.4 billion euros at the end of 2015. This prediction was done by the French Ecommerce Federation, FEVAD, on Tuesday.

Payment company Adyen processed over 21 billion euros ($25 billion) in payments transactions in 2014, which is almost an increase of 80% over 2013. At the same time the Dutch company grew by 100% in terms of revenue and by 40% in new customers.

Dutch ecommerce software solution SEOshop today has announced a global partnership with Powa Technologies. As a result of this, online retailers who use the SEOshop software get access to omnichannel sales channels.

Deutsche Post now offers its customers vacation packages. Under the brand name Post Reisen, consumers can find several holiday travel and city tour packages as well as adventure trips and cruises. For this new service, Deutsche Post is working together with Eurotours, an international tourism company.

John Lewis has revealed that its click & Collect service broke records over the Christmas period. In the five weeks to December 27, which included Black Friday and Cyber Monday, over half of John Lewis' sales were picked up via click and collect. But there was also a downside to this period, John Lewis confesses…

Only a minority of 24% of Europeans plan to do their Christmas shopping predominantly at the traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Slightly more than four in ten shoppers however are planning to shop their Christmas presents by using digital channels like web or mobile web. A third of Europeans plan to apply a mix of all.

One in two Spaniards first look online for products before buying them in a physical store. And for 47% of all Spaniards the price is the most important factor for buying things online, as they think products are cheaper online than in-store.

There’s still a massive lack of multichannel integration in the United Kingdom, as 50% of retailers with stores, still don't allow unwanted goods bought online to be returned to a store. This number hasn't really changed in the last seven years, a new study shows.