France

GeoPost, the express subsidiary of La Poste, is experimenting with drones. The unmanned helicopters are able to deliver a 4-kilogram package up to 20 kilometers away. In a video it's shown how a postal worker attaches the package to a small drone, which then drops it at the recipient's home and flies off, back to the postal company.

Media-Saturn has witdrawn its Redcoon shops in France and Denmark because after five years, these online stores still didn't generate enough money to keep them up and running. Redcoon thinks there's more potential growth in the markets where it already has grown to a mature player.

Online purchasing is becoming more and more popular in France as is recently shown by the success of the local Black Friday and Cyber Monday. For the first time in the history of the French ecommerce the percentage of internet users who bought something online went over 80%. There were nearly 35 million Internet users who made online purchases in the third quarter of 2014, which is 2.2 million more than one year before. The number of online shoppers grew by 7%, while Internet penetration grew by 2%.

French ecommerce solution PrestaShop has partnered with Nosto, a fast-growing personalization solution from Finland. Thanks to the cooperation agreement, the entire customer base from PrestaShop now has access to new customization options and product recommendations for their online store.

While Cyber Monday is still more popular in the United States, in Europe retailers increasingly embrace this day to boost their sales. In the UK and Germany there was an increase in conversion in consumer electronics during Cyber Monday last year, while there was a decrease for clothing and footwear in the UK and Spain.

The World Retail Awards were handed out for the eight time and again Vente-Privee got rewarded with the title of Pure Player of the Year. It's the second time the French shopping community wins this international award. H&M became the International Retailer of the Year, while John Lewis was the Omnichannel Retailer of the Year.

Online grocery shopping is getting more and more popular. In fact, the global online grocery market is expected to grow with 25% over the next five years. SyndicatePlus believes online grocery is the next frontier in ecommerce and took it upon themselves to map the European online grocery shopper. Let’s have a look at their study.

Cnova, the ecommerce division of Groupe Casino, has announced the expansion of its online store Cdiscount.com to Belgium. The leading ecommerce player in France was already active in Colombia, Thailand and Vietnam. Now it expands its services for the first time in Europe by delivering its goods to Belgian consumers.

The self-appointed ‘biggest online music store in The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg’ is planning to spread throughout more countries in Europe. Earlier this year Bax-shop already launched online stores in France (Bax-shop.fr) and Germany (Bax-shop.de). Sweden, Italy, UK and Spain are on the list for next year.

Allyouneed.com is expanding its services in Europe. The German online grocery retailer already delivered foods and drinks in Austria, but is now ready for the next step. Allyouneed.com will deliver to customers in France, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark.

No, Amazon didn’t make a typographical error at its site. The American retailer is really charging its French customers for shipping at the rate of one euro cent. And it has everything to do with the ongoing feud between Amazon and the French government.

Etsy, the website where you can buy and sell handmade or vintage products, has made its biggest acquisition, by buying the Paris-based website A Little Market, an online marketplace where also handmade goods can be bought and sold. Etsy is more and more expanding internationally and its strategy is to go deeper into local markets.

Facebook is a very popular social network amongst European online retailers. Except for the United Kingdom, where online retailers are more active on Twitter. But Twitter is however still less popular in the UK than in other countries like Germany or Spain. These two countries have the most social media savvy online retailers, as 90% of them are on Facebook and 80% are on Twitter.

The French ecommerce solution PrestaShop has expanded its ecommerce partnership with payment provider Authorize.Net. Merchants who use software from PrestaShop and have an Authorize.Net account now are able to prcoess payments in multiple currencies.

Mangopay, a payment solution for marketplaces, crowdfunding and collaborative platforms is aiming for transactions totaling 500 million euros by 2015. The capital injection that was announced this week will probably help Mangopay with this as well with its growth ambitions in Europe.