Germany

Kaufland, one of the larger ecommerce platforms in Germany, is expanding to Poland and Austria this coming late summer. Schwarz Gruppe, the owner of Kaufland and supermarket chain Lidl, has more online plans: it is allocating 200 million for Lidl's ecommerce activities.

The federal German government intends to amend data protection law. The legislative proposal includes tightening creditworthiness checks, which could have a negative impact on Klarna and other payment service providers. They fear they may no longer be able to conduct automatic credit checks.

Temu does not recognize itself in the criticism from German consumer organizations. They have accused the platform full of Chinese bargains of unfair trading practices. According to Temu, the company is unfairly portrayed in a bad light.

Alibaba is making targeted efforts to attract European SMEs. According to the company itself, it has been successful: the number of SME buyers from Germany has increased by 14 percent in the past six months. Additionally, more and more British SMEs are using Alibaba.com as their procurement platform.

eBay has witnessed a significant increase in trade between German consumers on its platform. The number of sellers has grown by double-digit percentages, partly due to the elimination of selling costs. The company sees room for further growth.

For the second consecutive year, Zalando has seen a decline in its revenue. A growing portion of its income comes from sales partners on the platform. Zalando aims to actively focus on providing support to other ecommerce companies.

German recommerce platform Rebuy recorded a turnover of 216 million euros last year. This means that the company is now profitable for the fifth year in a row. Around 10 million products were sold through the platform and given a second life.

The German well-known Otto Group’s global ecommerce revenue is expected to reach 10.8 billion euros in the financial year of 2023, which ends today. This is a decrease of 9 percent compared to a year earlier. Unlike previous years, the decrease in sales is also noticeable in its cross-border markets.

Dutch omnichannel retailer Coolblue has generated a revenue of 2.41 billion euros last year. This was an increase of 2.5 percent compared to a year earlier. Additionally, the company doubled its earnings before interest to 88.3 million euros.

Last year, ecommerce giant Amazon was able to generate a turnover of 34 billion euros in Germany, with the sales of its products and services. This was a growth of 12 percent compared to a year earlier. Its trade income in that year is estimated at 22.8 billion euros.

In several regions in Germany, parcel courier DHL is testing parcel shipping without printed labels. Instead, customers in these regions can put a handwritten package ID on the box.

Shein and Temu send tons of goods daily from China to Europe. In Germany alone, it is estimated to be around 400,000 packages per day, or nearly 150 million per year. This has serious consequences for the air freight market, experts say.

To help merchants set up their general terms and conditions, Shopify has a policy generator. It is free to use, and according to the platform, it generates individually adapted terms and conditions for a shop. However, in Germany, it seems that the generated texts are not completely legally secure.

German pet store group Fressnapf is launching its ninth European logistics location. The new building will cover almost 72,000 square meters. The news is accompanied by the Group’s financial results of last year, as it generated a turnover of around 4 billion euros.

The Platform Group has taken over Hood Media. This gives TPG control over Hood.de, one of the ten largest online marketplaces in Germany according to the new owner. The acquisition was financed from its own resources.