France

The yearly Global Retail Ecommerce Index shows that in Europe the UK, Germany and France are still the most attractive ecommerce countries to set ground in. However, the score is highly influenced by the online market size. Smaller countries such as Belgium, Denmark and Spain have less impact but do increase fast in score.

Product ratings on Google Shopping are now also available for shoppers in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Last year, the product ratings on Product Listing Ads were introduced in the United States, but now select Google users in Europe are also able to make better purchase decisions when shopping online.

There are very different preferences amongst consumers in the United Kingdom, France and Germany when it comes to the delivery of their packages. For example, the majority of online shoppers in the UK have been using click and collect in the last 12 months, while French consumers like to pick up their goods at a local store.

Lucky Cart, a French startup that specializes in so called 'promogaming', has raised 1.6 million euros from Partech Ventures, Kima Ventures, Venture Pleiades, Fa Diese and Edenred. With this new funding, Lucky Cart wants to expand in Europe, expand its sales team and develop a SaaS platform.

The ecommerce industry in France could grow by 10 percent this year. Thanks to a growing number of online offers, the arrival of new shoppers and a rise in transactions online retail sales in France could reach 62.4 billion euros at the end of 2015. This prediction was done by the French Ecommerce Federation, FEVAD, on Tuesday.

Amazon's marketplace is the largest of its kind. It's attracting millions of consumers who shop on the Amazon website and get their products from third-party sellers. Now there's a list that shows the global top 1,000 Amazon sellers as well as the top 500 sellers on Amazon's European marketplaces in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

Compare Group, a Dutch holding company consisting of five price comparison services in four different countries, wants to welcome 50% more visitors in 2015 than it had last year. And in terms of clicks it thinks it could achieve even much more growth. We interviewed CEO Ben Kerkhof, who explained to us why the company mostly thinks about a girl named Lisa these days…

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.