France

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.

Things aren’t going well for Otto Group, the German online retail company. After it sold Otto Touristik in June of this year, it's now looking for a buyer for Otto Office, its office supplies subsidiary. Otto Group has instructed investment bank Rothschild to find a buyer for its reseller.

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.

AO, the British online retailer of domestic appliances, has launched its German website, but that’s not the only expansion it has planned. AO World is also looking at starting businesses in the Netherlands and Belgium. Austria, Switzerland and France are also potential targets for the retailer that reported some strong growth in revenue for the first half of the year.

French online pharmacist Doctipharma has opened its service platform where it sells non-prescription drugs, after it obtained the approval of health authorities. Doctipharma.fr allows patients to securely access these products in strict compliance with the recommendations of health authorities and benefit from the advice of pharmacists gathered on this platform.

Otto is experimenting with interactive video clips on YouTube. Viewers can purchase the products that are presented during the pre-roll video advertisements with one simple mouse click. They will be directed to the relevant product page on Otto's French subsidiary 3Suisses.

Shinola has opened its ecommerce website for visitors from Europe. Now people from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom can order the Detroit-built watches, bicycles, journals, leather goods and shoe polish online. The expansion is a response to the growing international demand for the brand.

UPS has announced the expansion of UPS My Choice and the UPS Access Point network to 15 additional countries, including 12 in Europe. With these two services, online shoppers and global retailers have new personalized solutions to manage residential package deliveries.

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.

European ecommerce companies are increasingly adopting multi-carrier delivery strategies, as delivery is getting a very important factor for customers nowadays. The lion’s share of retailers in Europe are now working with multiple carriers to provide their customers more flexible delivery options.

The growth of the ecommerce industry in France is now less strong than it was a few years ago, but this does not prevent the industry from setting new records quarter after quarter. Between April and June this year, the Fédération E-commerce et Vente à Distance (FEVAD) has recorded more than 13.3 billion euros in online sales, up 10.5% year-on-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.

When it comes to delivery, the Netherlands seem like a misfit in Europe. A good misfit though, because Dutch customers can get their orders much faster delivered than their European counterparts. More than 80% of the Dutch online stores can ship items within a day.

The ecommerce industry in Western Europe is expected to reach 204.7 billion euros worth of sales in 2014. This makes this region, consisting of The United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and Luxembourg, again the biggest ecommerce region in Europe.

Wrangler has some big plans for this fall: it will launch an online store in ten European countries as well as launch a campaign with Finnish racing driver Kimi Raikkönen to boost sales. At the end of this year, Wrangler's online has to available in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Poland, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Ireland. France and Belgium will follow later.