Software

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.

Hybris has partnered with online marketplace management solution Neteven. Thanks to this partnership, customers from Hybris are now able to distribute their products on more than fifty international marketplaces, such as eBay, Amazon, Zalando and Rakuten, while managing and optimizing the sales cycle still happens from the Hybris platform.

Shopping app Shopkick has expanded into its first international market by launching the app in Germany. From day one it has partnered up with major retailers like Douglas, Media Markt and Saturn, OBI and Karstadt and brands including P&G, Henkel and GSK.

Ecommerce software solution PrestaShop is planning to expand by opening its services for consumers in the United Kingdom, the absolute number one ecommerce market in Europe. A country manager will be recruited and will be responsible for local business development in the UK. PrestaShop currently has business operations in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Spain and the US.

Shopify and Nosto have today announced a global partnership, which provides Shopify's client base of over 120.000 retailers worldwide with access to recommendations and personalization features within minutes. Nosto is a Finnish company that has built a plug-n-play recommendation engine, enabling customers from online shops to have a personalized shopping experience.

MetaPack today announced the acquisition of ABOL Software, an American provider of multi-carrier shipping software. With the acquisition MetaPack's global delivery services offering gets expanded and opens up a new market for customers who want to drive cross-border sales and improve their international delivery experience.

PrestaShop and eBay have agreed to expand their partnership and business development activities in Europe. After already establishing a partnership in France, Italy, Spain and the UK, the two companies now will partner up in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Merchants using PrestaShop's ecommerce software now can rapidly integrate their online store with the eBay marketplace.

The French ecommerce solution PrestaShop has expanded its ecommerce partnership with payment provider Authorize.Net. Merchants who use software from PrestaShop and have an Authorize.Net account now are able to prcoess payments in multiple currencies.