Online store

Aldi today announced it will indeed launch an online store. The discount supermarket will start selling via ecommerce next spring, first by wine by the case and followed by non-food products. Also, the company announced record sales of 9.38 billion euros in the UK and Ireland in its last financial year, which is an increase of 31 percent compared to the year before.

Consumers from the United Kingdom and France are most familiar with purchasing flowers online. In the UK, 37 percent of consumers said they had bought a bouquet online at least once in the past year. In France, this share is 32 percent. In these two countries, as well as Germany and the Netherlands, Fleurop/Interflora is the absolute market leader. The question is for how long, as new initiatives arise.

Fashion retailer H&M will soon launch an online store in Switzerland. It's not officially announced yet, but all the indications are that the Swedish company will open its Swiss online store in just a few days. In the physical stores the upcoming opening of the ecommerce site was already announced over the loudspeakers.

Zalando thought it was doing something good by changing its payment algorithm, but it actually backfired. The German ecommerce giant has been the victim of online fraud, as people ordered and received goods from Zalando, but never paid for them. According to the fashion retailer, the sum is about 18.5 million euros.

Groupon is no longer active in Greece and Turkey. The American ecommerce company pulled the plug on its operations in these two Southern European countries last week. It’s still not clear why the Greek site is offline now, but Groupon backed down in Turkey because of financial expectations that couldn’t be met.

Dutch fashion brand Turnover has found its way back into the ecommerce. After the online store closed its doors in 2011, the brand was only present offline in stores from partners. But now Turnover will open a pop-up web store that’s available for customers from September until December.

For the coming years, the online retail association BeCommerce thinks Belgium will welcome about 5,000 new online stores every year. If the expected growth continues, Belgian consumers will be able to shop at more online stores than physical ones by 2020.

An increasing number of Dutch people have become the victim of fraudulent online stores. On the other hand, the number of other cybercrime offences like hacking or identity fraud have decreased. In the Netherlands, it’s mostly highly educated people who become the victim of cyber criminals.

Rockar is an online car retailer that has partnered up with Hyundai to sell cars to customers. After having launched nine months ago, half of buyers bought a car online, while the other half did this in the only store Rockar currently has. It's a great success. Over 128,000 people have visited the outlet in London, more than the rest of the UK Hyundai network combined.

After opening several physical stores in the United Kingdom last year, American Eagle Outfitters is ready to launch its first localized ecommerce website in the UK. Within the next month the online store will open its doors for British consumers.

Karstadt is in dire straits. The online product range will be significantly reduced in size, while many employees have to look for another job. The German department store chain has quit the classical omnichannel concept, although it still bets on the combination of ecommerce and brick-and-mortar stores.

Dutch fashion retailer MS Mode is already active in six European countries, but wants to expand this number by launching an international store on Amazon and La Redoute. The expansion is planned for the end of this year. With this move, the fashion retailer expects to address a group of consumers that haven't shopped at MS Mode before.

Amazon has taken over the lease on a warehouse in London that was previously used by Tesco. This fuels rumors that the American ecommerce giant is planning the launch of AmazonFresh in the United Kingdom.

Consumers in Europe increasingly turn to online stores for their grocery shopping. The global online channel is expected to grow to more than 80 billion euros by 2018. Syndy (previously SyndicatePlus) published a new study on the online grocery industry across the most advances markets in Europe: the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Germany.

People from Greece seek their fortune online, since they are now allowed to withdraw only 60 euros per day. Especially bigger purchases like kitchen appliances or smartphones are popular among the Greeks, while online fashion retailers on the other hand saw their sales decrease the last couple of weeks.