Romania

The European Ecommerce & Omnichannel Association has a new member. It announced ARMO, the Association of Romanian Online Stores, has joined the pan-European ecommerce association. Romania is now the 17th country to have an ecommerce association joining EMOTA.

The Romanian online fashion retailer FashionUP has taken over Click4Fashion, which is active in Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Hungary. With the acquisition, FashionUP wants to further expand its business operations in the region. The value of the transaction wasn't disclosed.

Ecommerce in Romania has grown from 1.1 billion euros in 2014 to approximately 1.4 billion euros last year. About 6.7 million Romanians now have experience with shopping online, while 1.4 million inhabitants used a mobile device to buy something online.

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.

La Redoute, one of the largest online fashion retailers in France, has found a new official distributor for its brands in Romania and Bulgaria. Online store Click4Fashion is now the only online store in these two Eastern European countries who can guarantee delivery of La Redoute products that are ordered online in Romania and Bulgaria.

Online fashion retailer Zoot from the Czech Republic launched an ecommerce website in Romania. The entry on the Romanian market happens after an investment of about 8 million euros which Zoot wants to use to expand across the country. Zoot makes it possible for customers to order different sizes and colors and only pay for what suits them.

Romanian online store Click4Fashion.com has begun a strategic partnership with European multichannel retailer Heinrich Heine. As a result, Romanian and Bulgarian customers from Click4Fashion now have the possibility to shop for products and brands from Heinrich Heine.

Mega Image, the largest supermarket chain in Romania, could launch its own online store. The company registered the Mega Online trademark, but according to representatives of the supermarket chain this was only done to secure a possible future use. However, it's interesting what this would do to the online collaboration between Mega Image and ecommerce company eMAG.ro.

The online retail industry in Romania generated sales of more than 1.1 billion euros in 2014. When looking only at products and not services, plane and show tickets, holidays and travel, that is. The ecommerce market in Romania doubled in size last year, compared to 2013. The industry was then worth about 600 million euros.

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.

eMAG, the largest online retailer in Romania, sets foot in Poland. Its sales platform will extend into this Eastern European country, after eMAG.ro's owner Dante International acquired Agito, one of Poland’s biggest online stores. Poland will be the fourth international market where eMAG.ro will be active in, after Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary.

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.

In the United Kingdom there are recently several activities employed and online platforms launched aimed at boosting trade with Central and Eastern Europe. A new UK-based ecommerce site for example aims to alert local companies about business opportunities in Romania, while another initiative is focused on selling British food online in Poland.

The ecommerce market of Eastern Europe may be the smallest of the four European regions, it has seen in fact the biggest growth in terms of percentage. Because with an average growth rate of 35.7% over the year 2012, this ecommerce market was the strongest growing region in Europe that year.