Offline store

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.

Retailers in the United Kingdom expect 30 percent of all their ecommerce work to give them back no value. Most retailers are facing some sort of ecommerce challenge. Customer retention, customer experience and measuring metrics are among the most important challenges.

Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof is cooperating with online retailers Amazon and Zalando. The German department store giant and Amazon have been partners since 2017, but this partnership is being expanded, while Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof now also adds Zalando as a partner.

The French supermarket chain Auchan will open its first cashier-less concept in Europe next month. In Villeneuve d’Asq, a commune in the Nord department in northern France, a fully automatic point of sale that can be operated via the smartphone will open its doors.

Swedish furniture and hardware store Clas Ohlson is changing its business model. The retailer becomes online only in the United Kingdom and Germany and thus shuts down all its physical stores. Well, not all, as the store in Reading will remain open.

Retailers in the United Kingdom are using artificial intelligence (AI) at a much slower pace than other industries in the country. Over half of UK retailers are still not using machine intelligence, while this share is much lower among financial services companies or manufacturers.

Amazon Go, the checkout-free stores from Amazon, will roll out in the United Kingdom. The ecommerce giant hasn't officially announced this, but there are several reports Amazon is looking for locations across the country to roll out the innovative grocery stores.

The online branches of H&M Group are slowly surpassing the offline stores when it comes to geographical presence. Four of the total of nine H&M brands are even bigger online than they are in the physical world.

The top 10 of biggest retail companies in Austria consists solely of companies that also sell products through physical stores. The first pure play e-retailer in Austria's retail top 100 is Amazon, which ranks eleventh.

MediaMarktSaturn will open a pilot store in Austria in which customers won't have to wait in line to check out. The concept of the checkout-free store is similar to Amazon Go, but will work with a different technology.

In the future, Amazon wants to open physical stores in Germany, similar to the stores it opened in the United States. According to Ralf Kleber, VP Germany at Amazon.com, it's not a question of whether, but when this will happen.

Marks & Spencer has collaborated with the British store-to-door delivery platform Dropit, which provides a courier service for shoppers in London's West End. Now, customers from Marks & Spencer who don't want to carry their bags home, instead can have them delivered at their place whenever they want.

Swiss supermarket chain Migros lets customers check and compare products on their mobile phone while they are in-store. With the new Discover function in the Migros app, consumers can scan products and see what other customers have to say about the articles. They can also consult nutritional and allergy information.

HelloFresh has announced a collaboration with UK supermarket Sainsbury's. The meal delivery service will introduce some of its most popular meal kits for two into 35 Sainsbury's stores in London and the South East.

Online supermarket shoppers in the United Kingdom may be getting the opportunity to buy local produce more easily, as Members of Parliament are suggesting a "Buy British" button on websites of supermarkets, so foreign products can be filtered out.