Europe

Over half of online shoppers are prepared to wait longer for a parcel if it is from a sustainable shop. Still, only 1 in 5 customers are prepared to pay extra for eco-friendly delivery. Consumers are most worried about the environment when shopping for groceries and fashion.

Online furniture and home goods retailer Wayfair is laying off 870 employees. This reduction affects 5 percent of its global workforce and 10 percent of its corporate team. According to the company, its team is too big for the current economic environment.

Shopify is laying off 10 percent of its staff. This comes down to a thousand employees. According to the company, it is due to a decline in customer demand after peak growth during the pandemic.

Ecommerce software Shopify and online video streaming platform YouTube are launching YouTube Shopping. The feature offers multiple options for live shopping, where users can purchase products directly on YouTube’s website.

Fashion ecommerce giants Zalando, About You and Yoox Net-a-Porter are launching a sustainability platform for brand partners. The platform will offer a learning programme and engagement between brands and sustainability experts.

Payment service Klarna has closed 800 million dollars in funding. During the investment round, the company’s valuation dropped even lower with 85 percent. CEO Sebastian Siemiatowski berates ‘the steepest drop in global stock markets in over fifty years’.

BigCommerce has announced that it will expand into Denmark, Norway, Austria and Sweden. The expansion comes six months after its launch in Germany and Spain. Sellers of all sizes can build their online store with local storefronts.

Ecommerce turnover in Europe continued to grow in 2021. On the other hand, the number of online shoppers has dipped slightly last year. After a peak in ecommerce in 2020, growth is slowing down and stabilizing.

Berlin Brands Group, which became a unicorn last year, has to let go ten percent of its staff. In total, the German aggregator will fire about a hundred employees. Where ecommerce has grown exponentially during the pandemic, the growth now is slowing down. Instead of aggressive growth, Berlin Brands Group will focus on profitability.

Swedish fintech Klarna wants to raise 1 billion dollars (over 900 million euros) from investors. The company is the European market leader for ‘buy now, pay later’ services. However, it has been valued 30 percent lower and has since announced layoffs.

Leading ecommerce platform Shopify is shutting down its dropshipping extension, Oberlo. Sellers who want to use the app to fulfill their dropshipping business via AliExpress can no longer find it in the App Store. Shopify is transitioning to another dropshipping solution developed by DSers.

Austrian fulfillment company Byrd has raised 53.07 million euros in a Series C funding round. The company will use the capital injection to offer next-day delivery within Europe. It is currently active in seven European markets and will expand into three more.

Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba Group wants to expand its marketplace Lazada into Europe. Lazada will focus on local merchants instead of cross-border sales like AliExpress. Only recently, Alibaba’s logistics company Cainiao set foot in Belgium.

Globally, ecommerce revenues have dropped 3 percent in the first quarter of this year, when compared to that same period in 2021. That decline was seen in Europe as well (-13 percent). However, online sales in Spain reached a 6 percent year-on-year growth. It's the only country in Europe where digital revenues grew in this time frame.

Leading ecommerce software company BigCommerce is integrating with dropshipping marketplace Avasam to launch its new dropshipping service: ‘Click2Launch’. It will make BigCommerce an even bigger competitor for Shopify.