Amazon fills the top two spots in a new list of leading marketplaces in Europe. The ranking is made by the German Bundesverband Onlinehandel (BVOH). The interest group also made a separate top 50 for Germany. That is also led by Amazon.

On January 1^st, the Netherlands had more online stores than brick-and-mortar stores. The number of online stores was 84.1 thousand, while the number of physical stores was 82.1 thousand. In a year, the number of online stores rose 4.1 percent.

The Otto Group is partnering with Covariant, a company specializing in AI-driven warehouse robots. With the partnership, Otto wants to automate its fulfilment activities and increase its operational efficiency. Otto's German fulfilment locations will be robotized first.

PDD Holdings has opened an office in the Irish capital Dublin. It concerns the head office, according to international news outlets, but the company itself vehemently denies this. PDD is the owner of the Chinese online platform Pinduoduo and the international ecommerce comet Temu, recently launched in six European countries.

Online fashion marketplace Secret Sales has secured 10 million dollars in a Series B funding round. The capital injection will be used to accelerate expansion into Europe, with 12 new markets. By 2025, the platform wants to be the go-to destination for non-full price retail in all main European markets.

Getir is the new manager of the Gorillas app. Users of the app were notified that their customer data will be transferred to the new owner from Turkey. Anyone who does not want this can object.

The total ecommerce turnover in Italy is estimated to have been worth 75.89 billion euros in 2022. This is a growth of 18.6 percent, when compared to a year earlier. However, most of that growth was caused by price increases.

Dutch payment service iDeal has been acquired by the European Payments Initiative (EPI), a collaboration of European banks. Payconiq, technology provider of iDeal and Belgian payment platform Bancontact, has also been taken over. iDeal is to form the basis of a Europe-wide payment system, according to EPI.

Ecommerce giant Amazon is planning to expand its b2b division, Amazon Business, in Europe. It is unclear which countries it will target. The company is currently investing in its logistics, to supply European businesses with office supplies in bulk.

Fashion platform Zalando is going to launch a fashion assistant powered by ChatGPT on the website and app. It will start with a beta version, which will be available to selected customers in Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Austria by Spring.

Ecommerce giant Amazon has launched a new offering called the European Expansion Accelerator (EEA). With the new feature, sellers can easily expand to nine Amazon marketplaces across Europe and the United Kingdom.

Ecommerce aggregator Razor Group has taken over German competitor Stryze Group, another acquisition company. The deal was made with shares only. In addition, Razor Group has raised 80 million euros of funding.

Ecommerce platform Floodlight has raised 6.4 million dollars in a seed funding round. The company offers a smart business account where ecommerce business owners can manage and optimize their finances. “This seed round is an exciting validation of our platform and its potential to meet the needs of unserved SMEs”, says Noam Bernstein, CEO and co-founder.

Ecommerce software provider Shopline is expanding into Europe. The Singapore-based company is launching a European headquarters in London. It raised 182 million dollars last year in order to accelerate its global expansion.

During a plenary session, the European Parliament approved revised rules on product safety of non-food consumer products. According to the new rules, products from outside the EU can be sold on the market if an economic operator in the EU is responsible for its safety.