Europe

This integration offers SAP Order Management Foundation customers the opportunity to further optimize multichannel operations across more than 950 sales channels worldwide. It also includes new AI-features. Support for OMSA is on the way.

The European online fashion, beauty and luxury market generated a turnover of 213 billion euros in 2023. The cross-border share of that market was 38 percent, representing 82 billion euros. The market is expected to grow.

Ecommerce giant Amazon is launching an exporting tool called Export Central. This allows sellers to reach more customers in Europe, even in countries without localized Amazon stores. Thanks to the tool, sellers do not have to duplicate their listing or register new accounts.

German Minister for Economic Affairs and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck is working on an ecommerce action plan. With this plan, the government aims to create a level playing field between European online retailers and Asian platforms like Shein and Temu.

SellerX, a buyer of successful marketplace sellers, can no longer meet its financial obligations. The Berlin-based company, only four years old, will be auctioned in the German capital on September 17. This decision was made by financier BlackRock.

Temu officially invites European merchants to register as sellers on its platform. Merchants are responsible for their product assortment, inventory management, and the shipping of sold products. Temu determines the consumer prices for the goods.

Afound, H&M’s digital outlet, will be closing its doors later this year. Brands that are displayed in the outlet have adapted more direct-to-consumer strategies, resulting in a lack of demand. Their products in sale are often sold on their own websites.

eBay is giving shoppers more flexibility to cancel their purchases. From now on, they can cancel an order as long as the seller has not marked it as shipped. The company describes this as a simplification that should benefit both shoppers and sellers.

Ceconomy, the owner of MediaMarkt and Saturn, has had a strong quarter. Its own online sales increased by almost 10 percent. Additionally, MediaMarkt is growing thanks to external online sales partners: the trading volume on its marketplace has more than doubled in a year.

The environmental impact of retail, particularly the online sales of clothing, seems to be consistently underestimated. Between 22 to 44 percent of all returned clothing is never sold to a secondary consumer. These unused returned items have a big impact on the environment.

The European Parliament has made some progress in its proposal to simplify VAT rules for ecommerce imports. It wants to remove the threshold of 150 euros for import duties. Negotiations are still ongoing, but it has now been decided that the proposed changes will come into effect by March 2028.

One in three (34 percent) of online purchases in the first half of this year in Spain were placed on Chinese platforms, such as Alibaba, Temu or Shein. The market share (in terms of order frequency) of these platforms is far higher in Spain than in other European countries. However, Spanish consumers spent a lot less on these platforms than consumers from other countries.

No country in the world has as many internet users shopping online as the Netherlands, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The ecommerce penetration rate is 84 percent. At least four out of five internet users in the UK, Sweden, and Denmark also shop online.

Temu and Shein have ten days left to provide detailed information on various aspects of their services to European shoppers. The European Commission has requested this after complaints from several consumer organizations.

The European online consumer electronics market is valued at 90 billion euros in 2023. It is expected to increase 19 percent by 2025, reaching 107 billion euros. Retailers and C2C marketplaces selling used and refurbished electronics are driving this growth.