Hungary

H&M will sell online in Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Switzerland. The Swedish fashion retailer is making a big ecommerce push as it already invested heavily in its online retail site and took several steps to connect its web and mobile assets with its brick-and-mortar stores.

Just as in previous years, the online ecommerce industry in Hungary increased significantly in 2014. Predictions are that the total volume in this Eastern European country should have reached 266 billion Hungarian forints (€833.19 million) by the end of last year. According to eNET this signals the ushering in of a period of steeper growth.

Foodpanda seems to be very hungry! After acquiring businesses in India and Mexico recently, it now takes over three food delivery startups in Central Eastern Europe. The online food ordering marketplace has acquired Donesi.com, Pauza.hr and Netpincer.hr. It's targeting market leadership across Central Eastern Europe.

H&M will launch online stores in eight different countries in Europe during 2015. The new online markets will be Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Slovakia. H&M’s online stores are already available in eleven European countries.

The ecommerce industry in Central Europe has shown an average growth rate of nearly 23% last year. That is a better development than the average European growth of 17.5%. Together, the countries in Central Europe generated online sales worth 93.3 billion euros. Back in 2012 total sales were worth 75.9 billion euros.

Online toy store JátékNet has been rewarded with the title 'Best Shop of the Year' in Hungary. JátékNet won also a Quality Award in the category 'Games and Toys' and a Popularity Award in the same category. The Hungarian store won the Popularity Award three times in a row, in 2012, 2013 and now in 2014.

With an average growth rate of 19% in 2012 the ecommerce industry in Central Europe was growing almost as hard as the European average, which is 19.9%. The region's ecommerce market was worth 75.9 billion euros in 2012, but it's expected to have grown to 93.3 billion euros last year, which comes down to an increase of 23% in 2013.

The ecommerce market in Hungary has grown to 200 billion Hungarian forint or 640 million euros in 2013. The total retail industry in Hungary is worth 224 billion euros, which makes the ecommerce industry account for 3% of total retail sales. That is still below the average European online share of total retail, which was 8.8% in 2012.

MasterCard and OTP Bank Hungary announced OTPay, the first digital wallet in Europe to leverage the MasterPass API. It provides cardholders the opportunity to shop and pay at 30,000 MasterPass accepting merchants worldwide. And with the associated app, customers can pay bills online, top up their prepaid or make person to person transactions.

Annual growth of ecommerce sales in Eastern Europe outpaced that of Western Europe by 13 percentage points in 2012. For this current year a double digit growth above 20% is expected, although this growth is likely to decrease by 2017. But although Eastern Europe grows faster than Western Europe, the latter is still the one accounting for most of ecommerce sales in the whole of Europe.