Europe

There were 1,060 external sellers active on the MediaMarkt marketplace at the end of July. Ceconomy, the owner of MediaMarkt and sister chain Saturn, welcomes the ‘significant increase’ in marketplace sales, as stated in the reporting on its third-quarter results.

Ecommerce giant Amazon has announced that it will make changes to its payout period. Sellers in the United Kingdom and Europe will have to wait until a week after the delivery of an item to receive their proceeds. The change will come into effect in phases in the upcoming month, until September 6^th.

Amazon is pulling the plug on its specialized fulfillment program for small, lightweight, and low-priced goods in Europe, after the discontinuation in the US. Starting from September 26, these items will automatically be subject to new 'low-price FBA rates’.

The European Commission has launched the co-creation process for the transition of the retail ecosystem. It represents the first step towards accelerating the green and digital transformation of the retail and wholesale sector, according to EuroCommerce.

Asos Media Group has entered into a partnership with Rokt, an ecommerce technology platform that utilizes machine learning and AI to deliver targeted external post-purchase promotions. These 'non-endemic' offers will be available in 15 markets.

LiBiao Robotics has opened a European headquarters in Frankfurt to bolster its growth ambitions on our continent. The new location offers a showroom and areas for demonstrations of the autonomous sorting robots.

Fashion giants About You, Yoox Net-A-Porter and Zalando are expanding their ‘Fashion leap for climate’ initiative. The climate learning platform will now be extended to 250 brand partners. Last year, in the platform’s first year, it included 55 brands.

Following Zalando, Amazon has also lodged a legal objection against its classification as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) in Europe. “Amazon does not fit this description under the DSA”, the company states.

In 2022, the six biggest ecommerce markets in Europe generated 72 percent of the total European ecommerce spend. The European ecommerce markets that are most developed by penetration rate, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, have returned to their pre-pandemic growth trends. Emerging markets, like Italy and Spain, are still growing above trend.

Member states of the European Union collected 20 billion euros in VAT revenue last year through new ecommerce VAT portals. According to the European Commission, this demonstrates the success of the new filing options.

H&M's marketplace strategy is bearing fruit, according to CEO Helena Helmersson. The Swedish fashion giant is opening its doors to include more third-party brands.

Experimenting with generative artificial intelligence like ChatGPT may rather quickly lead to faster and more creative text ‘writing’, but the technology harbours many more opportunities for ecommerce. However, not without risk. Therefore, a look at strategy and concrete examples is in order.

In terms of cross-border market share, compared to the total online market, Luxembourg is the top 1 cross-border country in 2022. Its cross-border market share is 80 percent. The country’s total cross-border turnover was 1.8 billion euros.

Consumers' pursuit of more affordable prices is fueling cross-border shopping behavior, according to a consumer study conducted by Worldline in six European countries.

Over the next three years, ecommerce giant Amazon will hire more than 5,000 refugees in Europe. It pledged to do that, together with over 40 companies. Together, they will hire, train or connect to work a total of 250,000 refugees. At least 13,680 of them will get jobs directly in the 40 companies.