Marketing

In Switzerland, online retailers will be competing each other with the highest discounts ealier this year. The last couple of years, big discounts were handed out on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, but this year, things are about to change. Several online retailers in Switzerland are now focusing on 11 November: Singles' Day.

UK Mail will become DHL Parcel UK. After Deutsche Post DHL Group acquired the British parcels and mail company in December 2016, it has now become time for UK Mail to fully integrate into the group's network of European parcel companies.

The average conversion rate, also known as the percentage of website visitors that complete the purchase order, is 1.6% in Italy. During the online customer journey, Italian consumers leave ecommerce websites mostly because of poor usability or a lack of desired products.

What do 93 percent of the largest online retailers in Germany have in common? They all have a digital corporate magazine. In Germany, 28 of the 30 biggest online stores have at least one company magazine. Only Media Markt and Medion don't play along.

Personalization is key for German retailers. Many of them are looking to invest in personalization solutions during this year, with more than half of them expecting to spend over a million euros to achieve this.

Black Friday continues to be one of the most important sales periods for Spanish small and medium-sized enterprises, especially online. This year's edition of Black Friday takes place on 24 November and it's expected that almost half of online stores in Spain will participate.

HUK-Coburg, the largest insurer of private households in Germany, will no longer list themselves on online comparison websites. Instead of paying high fees, it would make more sense to give customers more favorable offers, the car insurance company explains.

Strelsson, Switzerland's biggest menswear manufacturer, opened an online shop where consumers won't need to pay money to get a fashion item. In order to be the owner of a trench coat or pair of jeans, consumers need to collect a certain amount of Facebook likes on a shared post.

Some online stores tend to adjust their prices, so consumers won't go ordering something at a competitor's website. For Ecommerce News Europe, price tracking software provider Prisync looked at how many ecommerce websites in Europe change their prices daily and how high the stock-out ratio is in these countries.

In the United Kingdom, homeware items, such as toasters and table lamps, account for a quarter of all online retail searches this year. Furniture is also very popular, as about one in five searches is for products belonging to this category.

Google has launched Google Marketing Solutions for Startups, a new centralized platform for startup companies of all sizes which gets them in touch with Google's marketing experts. Via this platform, the search company wants to help startups in Germany, Austria and Switzerland to find new customers and grow their sales online.

A new study on omnichannel in the European fashion industry shows that social media, online customer loyalty and store localization are the most common omni-channel solutions. The least common features are online order of in-store inventory with in-store pick-up by the customer, same-day delivery and shipping and in-store reservation of inventory for in-store consumer purchases.

Shopkick will leave Germany as of January 31, next year. The ecommerce app, which rewards consumers for walking into stores, entered the German market in October 2014, but is already leaving again. On the website it explains its parent company has made the strategic decision not to continue the service in Germany.

A new year is around the corner and we might see some new things in 2017. Four CEOs of leading Nordic ecommerce companies share their thoughts on what they think will be the key ecommerce trends in 2017.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are only one month away and these days mean big business for online retailers across Europe. But in some countries these aren't the biggest days for online shopping. In the Netherlands and Austria for example, most online revenue is expected to be generated on December 12. See what the biggest days are for online shopping in Europe.