Software

French ecommerce solution Oxatis raised 5 million euros from Arkea Capital and prior backers A Plus Finance and Omnes Capital. With the fresh funding, the SaaS-based ecommerce solutions provider wants to further expand across Europe.

UK-based ecommerce software provider Actinic has today launched a new version of its ecommerce platform. The cloud-based solution has put even more effort in a mobile-optimized solution, so its 10,000 customers can generate more sales from mobile users.

SaaS ecommerce platform Kooomo and French online payment solution HiPay have partnered, giving Kooomo's ecommerce merchants access to the HiPay payment solution directly from the platform. HiPay offers over 220 local and international payments methods.

What's the best software for retail businesses? IT research company Gartner tried to answer this question and came with an extensive report. It ranked ecommerce software provider Intershop third, behind the two retail software giants IBM and SAP. The German company is active for many years, but now it really seems on the rise, especially in mature ecommerce markets such as the Netherlands, Sweden and its home market Germany.

Shopware, said to be the largest shop system manufacturer of Germany, released version 5.2 of its ecommerce software. One of the biggest changes is the elimination of encryption software ionCube, thus making its software 100 percent open source.

Magento is the fastest growing and most widely used ecommerce platform in Europe. At least, that's what Magento Commerce announced. The ecommerce solution currently has 53 clients on Internet Retailer's list of Europe's 500 biggest ecommerce companies, which is more than any other provider.

Ecommerce software provider ePages launched Pay with Amazon for its UK and German based online shop owners. This integration allows the merchants' customers to check out with payment and shipping information stored in their Amazon account, while remaining within an ePages-powered shop throughout the checkout process.

Clerk.io, a Danish SaaS startup that helps online shops increase sales and retention, is expanding rapidly throughout Europe. The software company has already established itself in Europe, primarily in the UK, the Netherlands and Italy, but wants to expand to Germany and France as well.

BigCommerce and eBay have launched a strategic partnership, enabling retailers using the BigCommerce ecommerce platform to list their products and manage their inventory on the eBay marketplace. These retailers also have access and exposure to more than 162 million global active eBay buyers.

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.

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.

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 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.