Czech Republic

In Europe, more and more consumers like to pay using their smartphone or tablet. In share of mobile device owners who already have experience with mobile payments, Turkey is the absolute leader in Europe. This is apparent from the latest report by yStats.com, called "Europe Online Payment Methods: First Half 2015".

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.

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.

The ecommerce industry in Central Europe has shown an average growth rate of nearly 23% last year. That is a better development than the average European growth of 17.5%. Together, the countries in Central Europe generated online sales worth 93.3 billion euros. Back in 2012 total sales were worth 75.9 billion euros.

Global investors are looking with increasing interest to the ecommerce industry in Eastern Europe. The growth and trends in this region attracts the attention of international ecommerce players and investors. For example in Turkey, there's a raised interest of investors, mostly in the clothing sectors.

Prologis, the world's biggest industrial-building owner, is constructing more and more warehouses in Europe as the demand for goods sold online keeps growing. Prologis has started projects in Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia and is looking for more opportunities in Germany and the Netherlands.

With an average growth rate of 19% in 2012 the ecommerce industry in Central Europe was growing almost as hard as the European average, which is 19.9%. The region's ecommerce market was worth 75.9 billion euros in 2012, but it's expected to have grown to 93.3 billion euros last year, which comes down to an increase of 23% in 2013.

Annual growth of ecommerce sales in Eastern Europe outpaced that of Western Europe by 13 percentage points in 2012. For this current year a double digit growth above 20% is expected, although this growth is likely to decrease by 2017. But although Eastern Europe grows faster than Western Europe, the latter is still the one accounting for most of ecommerce sales in the whole of Europe.

Food delivery service Foodpanda has launched in the Czech Republic. At almost the same time the Rocket Internet company acquired a competitor in Brazil to strengthen its presence in Latin America, where it’s operating under the name Hellofood.