France

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.

Just Eat has shown some pretty big growth during the first half six months of this year. Its revenue grew by almost sixty percent compared to the same period last year, while its profit went up almost 600% in the past six months. But not all is positive for the UK-headquartered company, as revenue in Belgium and the Netherlands declined.

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.

Home24, the online furniture company from Rocket Internet, has doubled the number of its customers to 1 million and had started with optimizing and redesigning its online store so customers get more inspiration when buying furniture online.

Staples has drastically improved the ecommerce experience on their key websites in Europe, including Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. This got combined with a refreshed look and feel of the online storefronts. With the update, omni-channel shopping must be easier for Staples' customers.

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.

The FEVAD, the French association of ecommerce and distance selling, published its yearly infographic, which consists of four pages of ‘chiffres clés’ about the French state of ecommerce. Let's have a look at some of these 2013 figures.

Online merchants in France won't be able anymore to offer free shipments of discounted books. That's the result of new legislation that was passed last week by the French Senate. The law is designed to protect local bookstores and is unofficially called the anti-Amazon law, as the retail giant gave book discounts along with free shipments, something local bookstores could not appreciate at all.

Odigeo is the number one in the French Ecommerce Top 100. That’s what we learned from the Top 100 French Ecommerce 2014 published by Ecommerce Magazine this month. Although the French Railway group VSC is actually leading the list, when adding the estimates, Odigeo becomes number one.

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.

British consumers spend almost five times more when they shop for groceries online than they do in-store. For now, the United Kingdom is the leader in the field, but by 2016 France will overtake the UK, thanks to the impressive growth of the click and collect offer in France.

MonDéfilé.com, which means 'my fashion catwalk' in English, has launched its international website. Now consumers from all around the world can order exclusive clothes and accessories from young designers they voted on. The international launch has involved the introduction of international shipping, a bilingual website and an exclusive English-written blog.

Kiala, which sends parcels to over 11,700 convenient collection points throughout Western Europe, has enabled merchants to get their goods delivered to other countries where Kiala is active. From now one, an online merchant sending parcels using Kiala can also send these parcels to the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and Spain.

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.