France

Gap, the American clothing retailer, is active in Europe for quite some time. But while it has seen some steady growth in the United States these last couple of years, its presence in Europe is slightly less positive. Revenues here have come down from €516 million in 2010 to €507 million in 2012, despite continued expansion.

The total online economy of sold goods and services in Western Europe amounted €158.1 billion last year, but is expected to grow to €173.8 billion in 2013, according to new data from Ecommerce Europe, an umbrella organisation for online retailers active in Europe.

A new tool is released which should help online stores be protected against the automated retrieval of prices by competitors. The anti-scraping software BotDefender is developed by France-founded software company Lokad and can be used and implemented for free.

France is lagging behind in terms of frequency of purchasing and the recruitment of new online buyers. Is that bad news? The fact that less new customers arise doesn’t have to be that bad. But the fact that the frequency of purchasing online is no longer increasing, could have a negative effect on French ecommerce.

Slightly more than 12 percent of the total online sales during the holiday season in Europe will come from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. That’s an increase of 68 percent compared to the same period a year ago. The growth in Europe is bigger than the mobile holiday sales growth in the United States.

The mobile retail audience in Europe grew by 43 percent over the past year, with 20 percent of smartphone users visiting online retail sites and apps using their mobile phone. Also 1 in 7 smartphone users from the five leading European markets (the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain)have completed a retail transaction on their phone in a month.

A double digit growth rate above 10% in B2C ecommerce sales in Western Europe is expected for 2013. Total ecommerce sales in this region are expected to reach over 300 billion euros by 2016, as cross border shopping continues to gain popularity among European consumers.

Dixons is to sell its French ecommerce business Pixmania, while also getting freed of its loss-making Turkish company ElectroWorld. Four months ago Dixons said it would like to sell Pixmana and if that proved impossible closure of the operation was an option. By selling Pixmania and Electroworld Dixons can now focus on markets where they have leading positions.

Otto Group, one of Europe's biggest online retailers, wants to fully acquire the ecommerce assets of Groupe 3SI, a huge online retail company in France. Otto already owns a 51% stake in the company since 1981, but now wants the whole ecommerce deal.

A new ecommerce platform called To The Tops has launched in the United Kingdom, France and Scandinavia. Its goal is to get as successful as other celebrity curated ecommerce platforms like BeachMint. Retired soccer player Patrick Vieira and singer Kimberly Wyatt are some of the names lending their support.

Ecommerce sites in France are hiring more people than the year before and the number of ecommerce jobs is expected to continue to grow in 2013. And that's pretty good news, considering the fact the French economy is officially in recession. While unemployment in the Western-European country is rising, the ecommerce industry continues to be one of the few sectors that created jobs.

Rad, which is a French dicovery platform for fashion, art and design products, has raised 2,5 million euros in funding. They received this amount of money in a Series A investment round led by Index Ventures. With the investment Rad likes to expand its site to the United Kingdom and Germany.

Sarenza sold their 7 millionth item. The French online shoe store achieved this milestone after eight years of existence. More notable is the fact it already sold 1 million items in the last four months. Sarenza wants to grow even further by launching a mobile online store.

French ecommerce company MenInvest has acquired the London-based online retailer Oki-ini for an undisclosed amount. Two of Oki-Ni’s co-founders will join the company’s board as shareholders and will advisor the Group. The acquisition is all part of MenInvest's plan to reach €100 million in revenue by 2016.

The French payment solution company Ingenico is buying online payment service provider Ogone for €360 million ($488.56 million). Ingenico called the acquisition "a key milestone" in its strategy to become a one-stop-shop provider of multi-channel payment solutions, whether it's at the POS, online or through mobile devices.