Europe

Cross-Border Commerce Europe is a new initiative from Carine Moitier, who co-founded Belgian ecommerce association BeCommerce in 2005. With this online platform, she wants to help international retailers to perform better on the European ecommerce market.

UK mattress startup Eve Sleep no longer sells its mattresses in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and many other countries in Europe. There is no official reason given for this radical change, but fact is that Eve Sleep is now focusing on France and its home market in the United Kingdom.

Chinese ecommerce giant JD.com is ready to launch in Europe. The retailer was aiming for this continent for quite some time now, but it now wants to have finalized its strategy for entering the European ecommerce market by the end of this year.

Ecommerce in Europe has once again shown some double-digit growth. The total ecommerce turnover in Europe increased by 11 percent last year, making it worth 534 billion euros. For the current year, a growth rate of 13 percent is expected, which would mean ecommerce in Europe will be worth 602 billion euros in 2018.

Four major online marketplaces that are active in Europe - Alibaba, Amazon, eBay and Rakuten France - have signed the Product Safety Pledge from the European Commission. This commitment means they will remove dangerous and unsafe products from their online marketplaces faster.

The European Union has seen a steady increase in the number of rival products showing up in Google Shopping's search ads. But this doesn't mean the internet giant has done enough to avoid more fines on top of the 2.4 billion euro penalty Google got last year.

Alipay, the biggest payments firm of China, will be available in 20 countries across Europe at the end of this year. The mobile payment platform is said to have signed deals with over 100 banks and 40 digital wallets companies in Europe.

It was often hot in Europe last month, but this month it also might be a good idea to visit some interesting and air-cooled ecommerce events! As always, we've made a handy overview for you, so you know when and where an ecommerce event takes place this month in Europe.

Chinese ecommerce giant JD.com has introduced a solution for online retailers looking to sell in China. The China Railway Express is 'faster than the sea and cheaper than air', JD.com promises. The first freight full of JD-procured goods from Europe went from Germany to China last week.

Emma, a German retailer that sells mattresses online, is the fastest-growing startup in Europe. Or at least in the countries The Next Web describes as the continent's six hottest startup ecosystems: the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain and Sweden.

Europe's leading consumer electronics retailers MediaMarktSaturn and Fnac Darty will join forces to set up a European retail alliance. This should help both parties with offering exclusive products and services to customers and achieving efficiency in the partnership with their suppliers. The European Retail Alliance will be open to other retailers.

Twenty years after Amazon started with dedicated ecommerce websites in Europe, the US company is still struggling on this continent. Mostly, it has trouble gaining serious traction in apparel and footwear, key parts of its dominance in the US. What makes it so hard for Amazon to achieve the same success in Europe?

May is here and again, there are some interesting ecommerce events in Europe you could visit this month. As always, we've made a handy overview for you, so you know when and where an ecommerce event takes place this month in Europe.

Fintech company iZettle has launched its own ecommerce software solution. iZettle E-commerce is meant for current iZettle customers that want to sell their products online and for new customers to the Swedish company.

Chinese ecommerce company JD.com wants to have more luxury brands form Europe on its website. That's why it made a pitch today, saying it can offer faster delivery and better fraud protection than its bigger rival, Alibaba.