France

Ingenico Payment Services' ecommerce division is merging with GlobalCollect, and as a result it will be transforming into Ingenico ePayments. Together, the companies hope to have a wider reach and stronger offering for their customers and partners.

Deutsche Post DHL Group announced its plans to invest in a minority stake in Relais Colis, a package delivery company from France. With this investment, the German logistics company wants to enhance the access for its DHL divisions and their customers to the French ecommerce market.

Fitle, a startup from France that aims to simplify the shopping experience, wants to expand its offer to Germany. In September of this year, the virtual fitting room app should be available for consumers in Germany. Originally, the launch there was planned for this month.

Are their differences between shoppers in let's say France or Spain? Yes, of course. The major steps of the customer journey may look similar across all countries, there are certainly a few differences in each country. DPD studied the behavior and expectations of 18-25 year olds in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Poland.

Amazon has placed its Amazon Lockers in a French shopping mall. This is the first time Amazon installs its large metal cabinets on the European mainland. A total of 55 lockers with three different sizes are now located at shopping mall So Oeust in Levallois-Perret, near Paris.

Spanish fashion brand Mango is collaborating with Amazon Europe. It opened a private online store on the popular marketplace. Or actually, it opened several online stores as the assortment is country-specific. In the UK for example, customers can buy all products, while in Germany and France only the men's, kid's and Violeta by Mango lines are offered.

EasySize, a Danish data-driven company that tries to solve the sizing and fitting issue in fashion ecommerce, has entered the Swedish market last month, but is already busy planning other launches. The company has announced it will expand to Europe's three biggest ecommerce markets: the United Kingdom, Germany and France.

La Redoute, one of the largest online fashion retailers in France, has found a new official distributor for its brands in Romania and Bulgaria. Online store Click4Fashion is now the only online store in these two Eastern European countries who can guarantee delivery of La Redoute products that are ordered online in Romania and Bulgaria.

Quotient has announced it acquired Shopmium, a French mobile cash-back app that's similar to ibotta and Checkout51. With the acquisition, Quotient has a new way to reach customers through their mobile devices. And of course, by incorporating Shopmium, Quotient now also has more data in house so it could better personalize and target media and promotions.

Vente-privee.com is known for its online flash sales, but the France-founded retailer is making a name for itself as a company with an excellent customer service. It was awarded "best customer service of the year" in the United Kingdom for the second year in a row. Such awards it previously got in France and Spain as well.

Chinese ecommerce company Alibaba is about to open offices in Europe, in an attempt to attract more sellers to the platform. The ecommerce player wants to be the ‘gateway to China' for merchants from Europe and wants to achieve this by opening offices in Italy, France and Germany.

Lots of companies rely on digital marketing, so it's important to understand how customers behave online. A new study shows that although direct traffic is the most popular source of visitors in general, visitors of fashion websites come more often through search engines. This is especially noticeable in the United Kingdom and France.

The ecommerce turnover in France increased by 15 percent during the first six months of this year. As a result online retail sales in the Western-European country were worth 31 billion euros. The forecast for the ecommerce turnover in the whole of 2015 has been raised to around 65 billion euros, from a previous estimate of 60 billion euros.

Auchan, the third largest food retailer in France, has announced it will increase its product lines and range. It does this by launching a new online marketplace. For now, Auchan will focus on two main categories: food, which is the core of its business, and garden articles. The categories 'high-tech',  'baby care', 'furniture' and 'toys' should complement the marketplace by the end of this year.

Consumers from the United Kingdom and France are most familiar with purchasing flowers online. In the UK, 37 percent of consumers said they had bought a bouquet online at least once in the past year. In France, this share is 32 percent. In these two countries, as well as Germany and the Netherlands, Fleurop/Interflora is the absolute market leader. The question is for how long, as new initiatives arise.