Ireland

H&M has opened several new online stores in Europe. It now has dedicated websites in Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Luxembourg and Ireland. The fashion retailer offers the same range as it does in the physical stores, with complete collections for men, women and children, including accessories.

Visa will make its online payment service Visa Checkout available to merchants and consumers in the United Kingdom, France, Ireland, Poland and Spain this year. With Visa Checkout, users have the security and convenience of the Visa card, but then in the digital world.

Lesara, a Berlin-based online fashion and lifestyle retailer, has announced it will now also supply customers in the United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Bulgaria, The Republic of Ireland, Romania, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, Poland, Czech Republic, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

eShopWorld, which offers modules for cross-border retailers, has been ranked number one in the local Deloitte Technology Fast 50. This list ranks the fastest growing technology companies in Ireland based on average percentage revenue growth over four years. eShopWorld achieved growth of more than 9,900 percent during this period.

An Post, the state-owned postal services provider of Ireland, is joining the world of delivery boxes. Last month, An Post announced it has started its Delivery Box service. "No more missed deliveries, stress-free online shopping and your parcels delivered safely even when you are out", the company promises.

A survey among several European countries shows that it's especially the Dutch and Irish consumers who are interested in fashion deals. Italians on the other hand, aren't that keen on such deals. Of all 17 discount categories, coupon codes for women's clothing didn't make into the top 5 of most used discount codes for this country.

In Ireland, a statistics goes around that around 75% of the money consumers in Ireland spend online goes to overseas companies. This may well be the case, but the opposite figure is also interesting. On average, 33 percent of revenue from Irish ecommerce sites comes from outside the country.

Zalando has opened the new Zalando Fashion Insights Centre in Dublin. With this first technology hub outside of Germany, the online fashion retailer is about to create 200 jobs during the next three years. The new base will focus on understanding the habits and patterns of online shoppers to create a personalized platform.

Payment gateway Realex Payments has been sold to Global Payments. Realex Payments processes over 29 billion in payments for thousands of online and mobile businesses worldwide and will continue to do this as part of Global Payments, a provider of payment technology services. The transaction is valued at 115 million euros.

The average Irish shopper will buy twenty-two Christmas presents this year, which is an increase of 31% compared to last year. On average, Irish consumers will spend 266 euros on holiday gifts. Of these gifts, twelve of them will be bought online this year.