Software

Customers from UK ecommerce company Shop Direct can now virtually compare the size of products they want to buy with a model in their own size or with items they already own. And this technology benefits the UK’s second largest pure-play online retailer as it contributed to a 10.3% increase in net revenue per visitor.

Zenstores, a British shipping platform for online sellers, has today launched an integration with WooCommerce, according to Builtwith the most popular ecommerce platform on the web. Ecommerce sellers with a Wordpress site can now manage orders and dispatch items more easily.

Shopify has released a plugin for Wordpress, which enables owners of websites built on this CMS to add a shopping function to their website. The plugin is free to download and adds a "add product" button to the content management system of the popular blogging platform.

On Demand Solutions, a UK company that already has ecommerce software for B2B retailers, has now launched an ecommerce software solution for B2C retailers. It focuses especially on small and medium-sized companies. The B2C version of ecommerce solution ODSnet has omni-channel functionality.

Shopgate, a popular mobile commerce platform from Germany, announced it has appointed former COO/CFO Marc Biel as its Chief Executive Officer to lead its expansion strategy into the American mobile market. Shopgate also moves its US headquarters from Palo Alto to Austin, where it will hire 50 new staff this year.

There is a petition going on to let Shopify support VAT exemption, which it still doesn't do. Several Shopify users are frustrated by the fact that whenever an EU based customer with a valid VAT number places an order in a different EU country, VAT is added to the sales price. Shopify doesn't support a way to automatically validate VAT numbers during the checkout process.

Consignor, a delivery management software company founded in the Nordics, has entered the British market. In the UK, it wants to help companies to streamline their shipping process. The expansion is the result of an increasing demand from customers and partners to support that market in the platform.

Multichannel retail management platform Brightpearl announced it has raised 11 million dollars (10.09 million euros). Venture investors, including Eden Ventures, MMC Ventures and Notion Capital funded the British company, who wants to use the money to accelerate growth of its US business.

Magento 2.0 has finally arrived. The long-awaited digital commerce platform is now generally available for download. It's the welcome update to Magento 1 and has been announced four years ago, when the first commit was made to the new ecommerce software solution.

Magento is a very popular shopping cart software. Not just globally, but also in Europe the eBay Enterprise-owned software has a dominant presence. Especially in Western Europe and Scandinavia, Magento is a popular choice amongst online retailers.

Shoper has launched a new solution for online shop owners called Shoper Payments. The Polish ecommerce platform now has its own online payment system, which is available to everybody that has an online store running on Shoper's software.

About 40% of the turnover created by the thousand biggest online stores in Germany was achieved on websites that run on custom software solutions. The second most popular option is Amazon Webstore, with almost 20 percent of total sales. Another popular ecommerce solution in Germany is Hybris.

It took several years, but the developer beta of Magento 2 has finally been released. It will still take another year before merchants are generally able to use the new ecommerce software. So we asked ourselves if Magento isn't too late with its next edition. Will Magento 2 still be relevant when it's open to the public?

Dutch ecommerce software provider BiedMeer will change its name into CCV Shop starting January 13, 2015. The company was acquired by CCV Group nine months ago and it now wants to use this name to start its services in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland, as the name “BiedMeer” (literally: “offer more”) won’t ring any bells across the Dutch borders.

French ecommerce solution PrestaShop has partnered with Nosto, a fast-growing personalization solution from Finland. Thanks to the cooperation agreement, the entire customer base from PrestaShop now has access to new customization options and product recommendations for their online store.