Luxembourg

German bicycle e-tailer Bike24 is launching in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The company already had localized online shops for Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Spain. Bike24 says the company now reaches 70 percent of the European market.

A new startup called Factory14 has joined the already crowded market of companies that acquire and sale marketplace vendors. Factory14 has raised 200 million dollars (164 million euros) and has already made four acquisitions.

Social finance app JoomPay has obtained an electronic money license in Luxembourg. With this license, the app from Joom can serve customers across Europe, enabling them to send and receive money with anyone.

DSV has introduced an extra weekly inbound departure from Shanghai, as well as a new route between Hong Kong and Luxembourg. On these two routes, part of DSV's Europe-Asia cargo air bridge, two 747 freighters will fly.

H&M Group has announced the online expansion of five of its brands. This month, COS, Weekday, Monki, & Other Stories and Arket will have their collections available online in nine new markets across Europe.

Swedish furniture store chain Ikea has launched its offical online store for the Luxembourgian market. The launch in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg follows one year after Ikea opened an online store in Belgium.

Alipay, the fintech company owned by Alibaba, has obtained an electronic money license in Luxembourg. With this license, Alipay can serve the European market. The Asian payments company is already present with a licensed entity in London, but it can now serve customers across Europe.

Luxembourg has created and launched LetzShop.lu, a national ecommerce platform aimed to boost the urban commerce. LetzShop.lu is an initiative from the Ministry of Economy, with the economic interest group (GIE) in charge of setting up and managing the ecommerce platform.

Luxembourg has granted illegal tax benefits to Amazon of around 250 million euros. As a result, Amazon paid substantially less tax than other businesses. Because of this unfair tax advantage, the European Union has now ordered Amazon to pay back 250 million euros in taxes to Luxembourg.

The government council of Luxembourg has decided to develop and operate a national online shopping platform. This platform will be called "Luxembourg for shopping" and is meant for Luxembourgian wholesalers who don't yet sell their products online.

The American online payment platform Stripe has expanded its services in Europe by launching in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. With Stripe, companies can easily accept online payments on their websites or via a mobile application.

Dutch postal operator PostNL has launched [email protected], a new solution for online retailers to easily sell fresh flowers and plants online. With [email protected], retailers can improve the product offering on their websites, while PostNL takes care of almost everything.

It seems that retailers in Luxembourg are still not keen on digitalization. Just 7 percent of tradespeople in this Western European country have an online shop for their goods or services. While other countries in Europe are embracing ecommerce, Luxembourg seems more reluctant.

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.

Ecommerce in Luxembourg is attracting more and more residents. Last year, 80% of the local internet users have made purchases online. This percentage was about 60 percent in 2006. The most online shoppers can be found in the group aged 25 to 34 years old, but more and more seniors are shopping online as well.