Online store

Amazon remains by far the largest online shop in Germany, ahead of local players Otto and Zalando. This is shown in a new top 1,000 ranking by retail institute EHI and ECDB. The combined revenue of the thousand top sellers was 3.8 percent higher last year compared to the year before. The top 10 grew the fastest. More growth is expected this year.

The European Commission wants to simplify the use of cookies on websites. It is considering the removal of cookie banners, which are mostly seen as annoying. Visitors often click on consent, without knowing what they are consenting to.

Smaller online businesses in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland are not benefiting from the restored growth in online spending. On the contrary, their revenue is decreasing. “It is becoming increasingly difficult for smaller online stores to maintain their position in the market.”

Amazon is doing a lot of good for the European economy, says Mariangela Marseglia. According to the Vice President of EU Stores, there are over 127,000 European SMEs thriving on Amazon. “Thanks to a company like Amazon, their job is simplified because we allow them to export to foreign countries in a very easy way.”

Starting in July, online sellers who ship with DHL will be charged a monthly fee for parcel shipping. At the same time, parcel prices are reduced. According to the company, this means that average costs are reduced when shipment volume increases.

Yesterday the eCom Summit & Awards event, which was organized by Digital Commerce Finland, took place. Prizes were awarded in 18 categories. Women’s fashion brand Nanso won the grand prize and was named Online Store of the Year.

Last week, the Croatian ecommerce association celebrated its 10-year anniversary by hosting the eCommAwards 2025. Six awards were handed out to online stores and three awards and three awards went to service providers. Lesnina XXXL was the biggest winner of the evening.

Last Friday, the winners of this year's prestigious Dutch Shopping Awards were announced. Online supermarket Picnic was the winner of the evening, as it won the DHL Best Online Store of the Year award.

A majority of German ecommerce businesses are not happy with how the industry is performing. Only 6 percent of online sellers are ‘very satisfied’, which is the lowest that has been recorded since 2015. At the same time, the share of ‘very dissatisfied’ sellers has increased from 15 to 21 percent in one year.

One in fifty visits to medium-sized and small online shops in Germany results in a purchase. The conversion rate on desktops is slightly higher than on mobile devices. The differences between industries are significant.

German online platform Otto is eliminating 480 call center positions. This results in layoffs of hundreds of employees. Several of the company’s customer service locations will be closed completely.

The Netherlands has more than 100,000 online stores. This figure comes from the latest quarterly report from Statistics Netherlands. At least this number of companies have online sales as their main activity, but the number is increasing. The amount of online stores with a broad product range increased 14 percent last year.

Nine out of ten Dutch employers in ecommerce are missing digital skills among the people who work for them. Especially in the areas of cybersecurity and innovative technologies, the shortcomings are significant. Employers expect that in the coming years, it will remain difficult to keep up with the development pace of AI.

Afound, H&M’s digital outlet, will be closing its doors later this year. Brands that are displayed in the outlet have adapted more direct-to-consumer strategies, resulting in a lack of demand. Their products in sale are often sold on their own websites.

As of September 2^nd, TikTok Shop sellers based in the United Kingdom will need to pay higher commission fees. The fees are being raised from 5 to 9 percent. However, if sellers reach a target number of TikTok Live and shoppable videos, they can reduce these fees.