Belgium

H&M will sell online in Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Switzerland. The Swedish fashion retailer is making a big ecommerce push as it already invested heavily in its online retail site and took several steps to connect its web and mobile assets with its brick-and-mortar stores.

DHL has launched DHL Parcel in Belgium. With this service, the parcel company wants to mature its B2C network in Belgium. The goal is to have a network of about 1,600 pick up points in stores all over the country and to compete with Bpost, Belgiums biggest parcel company.

Compare Group, a Dutch holding company consisting of five price comparison services in four different countries, wants to welcome 50% more visitors in 2015 than it had last year. And in terms of clicks it thinks it could achieve even much more growth. We interviewed CEO Ben Kerkhof, who explained to us why the company mostly thinks about a girl named Lisa these days…

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.

Things aren’t going well for Otto Group, the German online retail company. After it sold Otto Touristik in June of this year, it's now looking for a buyer for Otto Office, its office supplies subsidiary. Otto Group has instructed investment bank Rothschild to find a buyer for its reseller.

AO, the British online retailer of domestic appliances, has launched its German website, but that’s not the only expansion it has planned. AO World is also looking at starting businesses in the Netherlands and Belgium. Austria, Switzerland and France are also potential targets for the retailer that reported some strong growth in revenue for the first half of the year.

H&M will launch online stores in eight different countries in Europe during 2015. The new online markets will be Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Slovakia. H&M’s online stores are already available in eleven European countries.

Since time immemorial, the Netherlands and Belgium have influenced each other on several fronts. They not only share the same language (although the Walloon part of Belgium speaks French, not Dutch), but also have much in common on cultural, sport and economic levels. In the ecommerce industry however, it’s mostly Dutch players who influence the Belgian industry and not the other way around.

Otto is experimenting with interactive video clips on YouTube. Viewers can purchase the products that are presented during the pre-roll video advertisements with one simple mouse click. They will be directed to the relevant product page on Otto's French subsidiary 3Suisses.

Shinola has opened its ecommerce website for visitors from Europe. Now people from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom can order the Detroit-built watches, bicycles, journals, leather goods and shoe polish online. The expansion is a response to the growing international demand for the brand.

UPS has announced the expansion of UPS My Choice and the UPS Access Point network to 15 additional countries, including 12 in Europe. With these two services, online shoppers and global retailers have new personalized solutions to manage residential package deliveries.

Wehkamp will launch a Belgian website later this year. The Dutch company is developing a completely new online store for the Belgian market. The product range will consist of some 150,000 item from about 1200 different brands. It’s for the first time ever Wehkamp has gone cross-border.

The ecommerce industry in Western Europe is expected to reach 204.7 billion euros worth of sales in 2014. This makes this region, consisting of The United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and Luxembourg, again the biggest ecommerce region in Europe.

Wrangler has some big plans for this fall: it will launch an online store in ten European countries as well as launch a campaign with Finnish racing driver Kimi Raikkönen to boost sales. At the end of this year, Wrangler's online has to available in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Poland, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Ireland. France and Belgium will follow later.

Cnova, the ecommerce division of Groupe Casino, has announced the expansion of its online store Cdiscount.com to Belgium. The leading ecommerce player in France was already active in Colombia, Thailand and Vietnam. Now it expands its services for the first time in Europe by delivering its goods to Belgian consumers.