Germany

Around one out of four companies in Germany, 23 percent to be precise, sold their goods and/or services through a website, mobile app or electronic data interchange (EDI) in 2016. The companies that were active online with an ecommerce website or app, generated 19 percent of their revenue through these sales channels.

Next year, the E-Commerce Berlin Expo will take place for the third time and a new segment is added to this European ecommerce event: the E-Commerce Berlin Awards. This award show will reward the best ecommerce companies in eight different categories.

So far this year, 363.439 new sellers joined Amazon marketplaces in Europe. Among new sellers on all marketplaces that Amazon has worldwide, 36.3 percent registered on Amazon in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France or Spain.

AllyouneedCity, an online shopping platform for local retailers, has launched in Bonn. DHL Parcel launched the online marketplace so local retailers can compete online more effectively. Consumers from Bonn can virtually browse through the affiliated shops, purchase products and then have them delivered to their homes.

42 percent of consumers from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Sweden have used click & collect in the past twelve months. And one in four Europeans who used click & collect bought another product in-store while they were picking up their online order.

Amazon has announced it will open a research center in Germany that's focused on developing artificial intelligence to improve the customer experience. Amazon wants to create over a hundred high-skilled jobs in machine learning at this new Amazon Research Center.

Sloggi, the underwear brand from Triumph, is now presenting itself completely independently online and has launched an online shop in Germany, the United Kingdom, Austria and France. By the end of the year, Sloggi also wants to have online stores in seven more countries throughout Europe.

HUK-Coburg, the largest insurer of private households in Germany, will no longer list themselves on online comparison websites. Instead of paying high fees, it would make more sense to give customers more favorable offers, the car insurance company explains.

Shop Apotheke Europe has acquired mail-order pharmacy Europa Apotheek. Through this acquisition, Shop Apotheke wants to strengthen its European market leadership. The combination of prescription-free and prescription drugs is expected to create the largest and fastest-growing integrated online pharmacy of Europe.

MyEnso is a new online marketplace for food in Germany and wants to do things totally different than established parties. The most important part of the company's vision is the customer focus. With myEnso, only the consumer decides on innovation, product listing or service offerings.

Amazon wants to enter the pharmacy market in Germany. According to trade publication Aphoteke Adhoc, Amazon wants to take over market leader Shop Apotheke. But this online retailer has clarified that currently there are not talks or negotiations with Amazon.

Amazon, Otto and Zalando dominate the online retail industry of Germany. Together, these three companies account for about 44 percent of total sales from the top 100 ecommerce players in Germany.

Online retailer Otto has further expanded its delivery service. Customers who place an order before 8 PM can have their order delivered to them for free the very next day. The next day delivery service is effective immediately for over 12,000 products.

During the first nine months of this year, the German perfume retailer Douglas saw its ecommerce sales increase by 17.8 percent compared to the same period last year. The online segment of Douglas is now worth 303 million euros and it accounts for 14 percent of the company's total sales.

When an online basket was filled with 39 popular summer products in six countries across Europe, the ecommerce industry in France happened to have the highest prices. This 'summer basket' however is most expensive for consumers in Spain, as they have the lowest gross domestic product per capita among these countries.