France

French online shopping club Vente-Privee has launched its first European campaign. With the motto "À la Française", the company advertises on social networks in Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom while using typical clichés about France.

Ecommerce in France increased by 14.3 percent last year, which is a nice recovery from the declining growth that took place in 2014. But for this year, the growth is expected to decline again, as a growth rate of 10 percent is forecasted. B2C ecommerce sales in France are expected to reach 71.4 billion in 2016.

Amazon has reportedly taken over a warehouse in the 18th district of Paris, which led to rumors that the American ecommerce giant will be launching Amazon Fresh in France. However, according to sources around the French tech website Journal Du Net, this warehouse is meant for Amazon launching its one-hour delivery service Amazon Prime Now in France.

French postal service company La Poste and railway company SNCF have deployed their first lockers in a hundred stations in Ile de France and now announced they will install more lockers in the major train stations of Paris and the main stations in other big cities in France.

In 45 days, the best European soccer countries (minus the Netherlands) will decide which country will succeed Spain as the European champion. To get fans in the mood, Amazon France opened a dedicated online Euro 2016 shop, containing more than 134,000 items for soccer fans.

French ecommerce company Vente-Privée.com has improved its position in Europe after buying Privalia, a Spanish online fashion outlet. The value of the sale hasn't been officially disclosed, but rumors say Vente-Privée is the new owner after paying 500 million euros for the Spanish ecommerce player.

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.

The 3SI Group, formerly known as 3 Suisses International, has decided to pull the plug on all of its retail activities in France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. It has changed its business strategy drastically and will now focus solely on service activities.

The ecommerce market in France is maturing. And so the priorities of online merchants evolve. A new study has shown that a vast majority of ecommerce players wishes to focus on excellent customer service. Also, many of them want to invest heavily in a good mobile shopping experience.

Visa will make its online payment service Visa Checkout available to merchants and consumers in the United Kingdom, France, Ireland, Poland and Spain this year. With Visa Checkout, users have the security and convenience of the Visa card, but then in the digital world.

Online fashion and lifestyle retailer Lesara has expanded to France. By opening a dedicated website here, Lesara could potentially reach more than 66 million new customers. In just two years' time, the German discounter is now active in 22 countries across Europe.

The online furniture industry in France is hot. Whereas the general ecommerce penetration in this country is still lower than in Germany or the UK, it is the opposite for online furniture. New data shows that 12 percent of sales in the furniture industry are made online, which is significantly more than the 6 or 7 percent achieved elsewhere in Europe.

Strategic investor VDD SAS has acquired Pixmania, the French ecommerce retailer that was previously owned by Mutares. This German company bought Pixmania in 2013 during a repositioning process with the goal to sell the company again when it has shown clear operational improvement. Pixmania is now part of a company that also owns and runs French online store Vente Du Diable.

French online retailer Exagona has a very specific product assortment: it only sells products which are 100% made in France. So, the design, the manufacturing, the assembling, the distribution, they all take place in France. The website sells fashion, food, furniture and much more. We interviewed Charlotte Bourgeois from Exagona.

Ecommerce in France was worth 64.9 billion euros last year and could reach the 70 billion euros milestone this year. Total sales of the online retail industry increased by 14.3 percent last year, compared to sales in 2014, when sales increased by 11 percent compare to the year before.