Austria

Payments companies Klarna and Mollie will work together more intensively in Europe. As of today, the payment solutions from Klarna will be available as standard for the more than 55,000 customers Mollie has in Europe.

Last year, there were about 9,000 retailers across Austria that sold online. This means that the number of online stores in this European country has nearly tripled over the past ten years. Also during the same period, the number of online shoppers in Austria has doubled.

Austria and China have signed an agreement, which should give Austrian retailers have easier access to the Chinese ecommerce market. Margarete Schramböck, Federal Minister for Digital and Economic Affairs, is currently on a state visit to Beijing, where she negotiated a deal with the Ministry of Commerce of the Government of China.

The top 10 of biggest retail companies in Austria consists solely of companies that also sell products through physical stores. The first pure play e-retailer in Austria's retail top 100 is Amazon, which ranks eleventh.

MediaMarktSaturn will open a pilot store in Austria in which customers won't have to wait in line to check out. The concept of the checkout-free store is similar to Amazon Go, but will work with a different technology.

Sloggi, the underwear brand from Triumph, is now presenting itself completely independently online and has launched an online shop in Germany, the United Kingdom, Austria and France. By the end of the year, Sloggi also wants to have online stores in seven more countries throughout Europe.

Ecommerce in Austria is growing rapidly and so is the willingness of Austrian consumers to buy goods online. Last year, the online sales per capita were worth 885 euros, which makes Austria one of the top countries in this area.

Google has launched Google Marketing Solutions for Startups, a new centralized platform for startup companies of all sizes which gets them in touch with Google's marketing experts. Via this platform, the search company wants to help startups in Germany, Austria and Switzerland to find new customers and grow their sales online.

Austrian Post, locally better known as Österreichische Post, has announced it will start with its online marketplace Shöpping.at in April this year. So far, 65 Austrian retailers will sell their goods on what aims to be a local alternative to Amazon, Zalando and eBay.

Gourmondo, a German online distributor of unusual foods, is expanding in Europe. After launching in Germany and the Netherlands, the ecommerce website is now also available in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Austria. Consumers from these countries can now also buy wines and specialty foods online.

Payment service provider MultiSafepay will expand its payment methods with Electronic Payment Standard (EPS), an Austrian online transfer procedure, so it can focus more on the growth market in Austria. MultiSafepay sees potential for its customers and wants to offer them the opportunity to enter new markets.

Amazon has launched its Dash Buttons in the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia, making these the first countries outside the US where Amazon sells its consumer goods-ordering buttons. Now European consumers can also reorder coffee, paper towels and detergent by hitting a simple button.

Rakuten is closing its marketplace in the United Kingdom in August. The online platform will also cease its operations in Spain and move customers and merchants from the Austrian website to the German website. The Japanese company wants to focus fully on France and Germany, where its websites have the scale and potential for sustainable growth.

Supermarket chain Merkur from Austria has announced its plan to launch an online store next month. The ecommerce website will only accept orders from customers in the Vienna area for now. In the online shop of Merkur, customers can buy the full range of the physical stores, which consist of more than 20,000 items.

The 3SI Group, formerly known as 3 Suisses International, has decided to pull the plug on all of its retail activities in France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. It has changed its business strategy drastically and will now focus solely on service activities.