Online store

When it comes to online shopping, consumers from Latvia and Lithuania emphasize the superior pricing policies compared to prices in physical stores. The number one issue for online shoppers in both Eastern European countries seems to be a long delivery time.

The willingness of German consumers to buy furniture online has grown significantly over time. Now more than one in three Germans, 37 percent to be more precise, have already shopped online for stuff like chairs, beds and tables.

The German hypermarket chain Kaufland has decided to stop its online grocery service in Germany, just one year after it launched the online shopping initiative. There are concerns about the costs of the operation and the lack of potential for future profitability.

Around one out of four companies in Germany, 23 percent to be precise, sold their goods and/or services through a website, mobile app or electronic data interchange (EDI) in 2016. The companies that were active online with an ecommerce website or app, generated 19 percent of their revenue through these sales channels.

Ecommerce is getting more and more popular in Ukraine. In June, about 13.6 million internet users visited online stores in the Eastern European country, which is 1.3 million more than in the same period last year. And these are the most popular ecommerce websites in Ukraine.

Sporting goods retailer Intersport is far behind the online competition, with ecommerce accounting for just one percent of its total turnover. The new CEO, Victor Duran, wants to change this by offering more attractive online stores.

The famous Swedish furniture retailer Ikea has plans to sell its products on websites of third-party retailers. The surprising move follows after Ikea has been targeting more online customers. The home furnishing retailer didn't comment on which platforms could be used for selling the Klippan sofa and Billy bookcase.

Next year, it will be possible to follow a training course in Germany in order to become an online retailer. The Otto Group, with companies such as Baur, Bonprix and Otto, is behind the initiative that should lead to more professional German online retailers in the coming years.

H&M is launching a new retail brand, called Arket, which features both Arket's own products and non-H&M brands. The Arket products are priced slightly higher than that of the core H&M brand. Arket stores will be opened in London, Brussels, Copenhagen and Munich, while online stores of the brand will launch in 18 European countries.

Last year, the top 5 of online stores in Switzerland has generated more revenue than the five largest Swiss shopping centers. And all this with a fraction of the space being used and with a fraction of the staff costs.

Zalando, Amazon and Otto together account for 18 percent of the 40 billion euros online shoe and apparel market in Western Europe. For now, Otto Group is the market leader, with Zalando just behind, but Amazon could be the number one soon. The American company is ramping up its fashion activities in Europe.

Zalando is a major European online fashion player and one of the few that could compete with Amazon on European ground. But it doesn't look at its American counterparts as much as it does at Asian companies. Zalando has learnt a lot from players like Alibaba.

Some leading online stores in Switzerland have collapsed under a rush of customers who visited their websites during Black Friday last week. Microspot, Manro, Interdiscount and Melectronics were among the online stores that couldn't handle the many visitors looking for hot deals.

Carrefour has over 800 hypermarkets, supermarkets and local stores in Poland and launched an online store in Poland last year. But this ecommerce website only offers non-food products. If we have to believe the rumors, that's about to change. Carrefour is said to sell groceries online in Poland.

German supermarket Lidl will start selling food online. The discount supermarket chain will start with a local experiment in Berlin this December. With Lidl selling foods and drinks online, its parent company Schwarz Gruppe is really pushing towards ecommerce. Another subsidiary, supermarket Kaufland, has started selling online recently.