Croatia

Last week, the winners of the biggest competition for online sellers in the Adriatic region were announced. The main award, Best in Adriatic, went to Slovenian online store Malinca. In total, 242 online stores from Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia entered the competition.

The winners of the largest competition for online retailers in the Adriatic region were announced yesterday. In total, 361 online stores from Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia entered the competition. The Best Retailer was awarded to Slovenian Bigbang.

Croatian price comparison platform Jeftinije.hr has launched a new service: Jeftinije Marketplace. In addition to comparing prices from different sellers, the marketplace allows consumers to buy these products directly from the platform.

H&M Group has announced the online expansion of five of its brands. This month, COS, Weekday, Monki, & Other Stories and Arket will have their collections available online in nine new markets across Europe.

Croatian Post has successfully completed its very first drone delivery. In about twelve minutes, the autonomous device flew from the Port of Gaženica to Preko at a speed of 35 kilometers per hour. The flight was part of a pilot project.

DHL has further expanded its European parcel network. The postal company is now able to offer its cross-border services for online customers in Ireland and Romania, while Croatia and Bulgaria will join the network in November.

In both Slovenia and Croatia, there's been a highly increased frequency of online shopping. Currently, 9 out of 10 internet users in these countries have experience with online shopping. Of course, there are also many differences between Slovenia and Croatia, for example in terms of trust in foreign ecommerce platforms.

The European Ecommerce and Omni-Channel Trade Association, better kwown as EMOTA, has welcomed a new member. The Croatoin ecommerce association eCommerce Hrvatska is the latest trade organization that has joined EMOTA.

Croatia was quite late with exiting the economic downturn, but is now showing some great signs of recovery. This is also reflected in the online retail industry. Ecommerce in Croatia is showing great numbers. A recent research project of sMind looks at the latest trends in the online shopping behavior of Croatian consumers.

H&M has opened several new online stores in Europe. It now has dedicated websites in Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Luxembourg and Ireland. The fashion retailer offers the same range as it does in the physical stores, with complete collections for men, women and children, including accessories.

The number of companies that use the internet as one of their sales channels is growing in Europe, but there are significant differences noticeable between sectors and by company size. Slovenian website SMind made a comparison between the results in Slovenia, Croatia and the average in the European Union.

As part of the upcoming Web Retailer of the Year conference in Slovenia, an extensive consumer-oriented research about online shopping behavior in Slovenia and neighboring country Croatia was conducted. One of the interesting finds is that more Croatian consumers shop at foreign online stores than those in Slovenia.

Croatia has a little problem. It seems domestic online retailers aren’t as popular as retailers from abroad: three quarters of of Croatian online buyers shop in foreign web shops. It's not that consumers don't have faith in local retailers, as 83% of Croatians trust such stores. It may have to do more with the lack of marketing and a limited online product range.

Foodpanda seems to be very hungry! After acquiring businesses in India and Mexico recently, it now takes over three food delivery startups in Central Eastern Europe. The online food ordering marketplace has acquired Donesi.com, Pauza.hr and Netpincer.hr. It's targeting market leadership across Central Eastern Europe.

It may not have been all moonlight and roses for Southern Europe with the financial crises countries like Spain, Italy and Greece had to face, but in terms of ecommerce this European region is doing well. It’s expected that the total online economy of sold goods and service in Southern Europe in 2013 amounted to 39,5 billion euros.