Europe

Amazon has announced the launch of its Pan-European Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) program. The American retail company gives European sellers on its Amazon Marketplace the opportunity to have them deliver the goods to customers in other European Union countries. This way, the American retail giant hopes to dominate online deliveries across the continent.

A new month, a new chance to attend some ecommerce events in Europe. This month there are several online retail conferences you could attend in London, but there are also interesting summits in Berlin, Stockholm and Bucharest! We made a handy overview for you, so you know when and where an ecommerce event in Europe takes place.

The US Customers and Border Protection have announced it increases the limit on duty-free purchases from the European Union from 200 to 800 dollars. In practice this means American online shoppers can buy more expensive stuff from European merchants without paying duties and taxes. So ecommerce companies in Europe could be expecting more US customers this year.

Imagine Commerce was held last week, bringing together over 2,500 Magento merchants, partners, developers and retail experts. Imagine Excellence Awards were handed out for exceptional creative, innovative and successful merchants across the global Magento ecoystem. Several European companies went home with such an award.

Clothes and accessories are by far the most popular product category to be bought online by 15- to 24 year olds in Europe. Also, footwear and tickets are popular items to shop online. The online purchase of clothes, accessories and footwear increases with age, level of education and income.

Beauty and personal care could be the next big online category in Europe, consulting firm A.T. Kearny thinks. But only if the products and online shops meet the unique needs of consumers. Nonetheless, online sales of beauty and personal care is expected to increase by more than 8 percent year on year until 2019.

BigCommerce and eBay have launched a strategic partnership, enabling retailers using the BigCommerce ecommerce platform to list their products and manage their inventory on the eBay marketplace. These retailers also have access and exposure to more than 162 million global active eBay buyers.

The month of April is very popular when it comes to ecommerce events in Europe. You can for example visit retail summits in Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Switzerland and the UK. We made a handy overview for you, so you know when and where an ecommerce event in Europe takes place.

Zanox, a German affiliate marketing network that's active across Europe, has revealed some insights on mobile shopping behaviors across 11 international markets, of which most of them are in Europe. It shows that the United Kingdom and the Nordics top the list of mobile transactions, while Switzerland is at the bottom. This country however, generates the highest average order values in the online travel industry.

The Ecommerce Europe Association has released the new website for its Ecommerce Europe Trustmark. With the website, the pan-European online retail association wants to give consumers a place where they can read in full what their rights are and what commitments the online retailer has made.

Zooplus, a major European online retailer of pet supplies, had a good year as its sales increased by 31 percent during 2015, reaching a level of 711 million euros. The company generated double-digit growth at all of its 30 markets. Zooplus has now over 4 million active customers and says the positive development was driven mainly by the increase in the sales retention rate, which reached a record level of 94 percent last year.

Ecommerce News is the website you must read if you want to stay up-to-date on the European ecommerce sphere. But what if you have a question about your cross-border sales? What if you want to brainstorm with international retailers? At the new Ecommerce News Community you can discuss all things ecommerce.

Geo-blocking, which prevents consumers to purchase consumer goods and accessing digital content online from a certain country, is widespread in the European Union. A survey has shown that 38 percent of retailers selling goods and 68 percent of retailers selling digital content said they geo-block consumers located in other EU member states.

The Online Dispute Resolution platform, aimed to help online shoppers settling disputes with merchants across Europe, still doesn't offer exactly what it meant to do. The consumer tool was launched officially in February, but still five countries - including big ecommerce markets Germany and France - haven't connected yet.

Shopify has released a plugin for Wordpress, which enables owners of websites built on this CMS to add a shopping function to their website. The plugin is free to download and adds a "add product" button to the content management system of the popular blogging platform.