France

French supermarket Monoprix, a subsidiary of Casino Group, wants to further expand its partnership with Amazon. The two companies started working together last year, with Amazon delivering groceries in France through its Amazon Prime Now program.

The French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire wants a 3 percent tax on the French revenue of large internet companies, such as Amazon, Airbnb, Booking.com and Criteo. It looks like an EU-wide digital tax plan will be ditched next week.

Fashion retailer Zalando will expand its relatively new beauty category in Europe. Over the next two months, the German ecommerce company will start selling its beauty products in Sweden, Denmark, France, Belgium and Italy.

Latvian online marketplace Joom, which features low-priced products from China, is increasingly betting on French brands. After helping French merchants to sell their products in Europe, Joom wants to take things further and target merchants in other European countries as well.

The French supermarket chain Auchan will open its first cashier-less concept in Europe next month. In Villeneuve d’Asq, a commune in the Nord department in northern France, a fully automatic point of sale that can be operated via the smartphone will open its doors.

Even though the "Yellow Vest" protests in the last two months of 2018 took their toll, ecommerce in France has managed to increase by 13.4 percent last year. The online retail industry of France was worth 92.6 billion euros at the end of last year.

Google Pay has continued its global expansion and is now also available in France. Customers from six different banks in France can start using Google's mobile payment service. Google Pay can also be used at several online services and retailers in France.

Google Shopping will soon be more than just a simple price comparison engine. Early 2019, Google will introduce its own marketplace in France. With the new Google Shopping platform, the tech company will compete directly with Amazon.

Rakuten France has launched Club R Everywhere, an extended version of it current loyalty program Rakuten Club. With Club R Everywhere, customers from Rakuten get a 5 percent discount on purchases at partner brands, such as Nike, Expedia and Monoprix.

Ten leading global online grocery markets are predicted to generate combined sales of almost 200 billion euros, at an annual rate of 20 percent, by 2023. And four of them are from Europe. The United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain are predicted to have the highest online grocery market sizes in Europe.

Ecommerce software provider Intershop introduced its commerce-as-a-service solution in February of this year. This software solution is an important strategical milestone in the company's cloud-first strategy. Ecommerce News Europe interviewed Sales Director EMEA Gerrit Enthoven about the current state of affairs.

Cdiscount Marketplace is busy expanding outside of France. The online marketplace now also delivers some items to Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain. This means, the 10,000 connected sellers suddenly get access to a new 200 million customer base.

Viniexport, an online marketplace from Italy that enables companies to buy and sell wine worldwide, has secured a 2 million euros funding round. With the money, the marketplace wants to pursue its European expansion.

Ecommerce in France grew 14 percent last year. The online business-to-consumer turnover was worth just under 82 billion euros and is expected to rise even further in the coming year. The French ecommerce turnover is forecast to be worth 93 billion euros at the end of this year.

The Senate in France wants to introduce a tax on ecommerce. More specific, on deliveries from ecommerce companies to online consumers. The upper house of the French parliament wants to do this to protect city centers and smaller businesses across the country.