Spain

In Spain, more people are using their smartphones and tablets to order products and services online. One in two Spanish internet users who have purchased online claim to have made some of these purchases through their mobile device. This is an increase of 15 percentage points compared to last year.

Apple has launched its mobile payments service Apple Pay in Spain. It supports cards from Banco Santander, Carrefour, Ticket Restaurant and American Express. At the moment, Apple Pay in Spain can be used at 27 major retailers, including Media Markt and Bershka.

Swiss online furniture retailer Beliani has further expanded its business across Europe. The ecommerce company has opened an online store in Spain, where it has run a pilot project since the beginning of 2015. Beliani is now active in 14 European countries.

In Spain, more than half a million people shopped fashion online during the month of July this year. An average order of clothing and accessories was worth 57 euros. Especially, Zara was a popular shopping destination, followed by Asos and Zalando.

Amazon has announced it will open a new and bigger Spanish headquarters. This 12,000 square meters building will be located in Madrid's upcoming business district of Méndez Álvaro. It will host Amazon's current 400 corporate employees as well as provide capacity for over 1,000 employees.

Older consumers in Spain, ages 50 and up, were always among the most hesitant to use the internet or to shop online, but this trend is slowly shifting. Now internet is a common destination for Spanish seniors when asked where they most often buy products and services.

Rakuten is closing its marketplace in the United Kingdom in August. The online platform will also cease its operations in Spain and move customers and merchants from the Austrian website to the German website. The Japanese company wants to focus fully on France and Germany, where its websites have the scale and potential for sustainable growth.

Promofarma has won the award for Best Webshop in Spain. The online marketplace that's filled with products from local pharmacies won the most important prize during the Ecommerce Awards, an event hosted by Club Ecommerce last week.

The 3SI Group, formerly known as 3 Suisses International, has decided to pull the plug on all of its retail activities in France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. It has changed its business strategy drastically and will now focus solely on service activities.

Eroski, a Spanish supermarket chain that's also active in France, has received very positive responses from users after it launched two mobile applications in mid-February. In just one month, the apps reached the milestone of 100,000 downloads.

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.

When Spaniards shop online, they mostly buy leisure-related products. Show tickets, books, music and restaurants are the products that are purchased online the most. Two out of three Spanish consumers shopped these kinds of products on the internet. Also, travel and consumer electronics were very popular last year.

Are their differences between shoppers in let's say France or Spain? Yes, of course. The major steps of the customer journey may look similar across all countries, there are certainly a few differences in each country. DPD studied the behavior and expectations of 18-25 year olds in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Poland.

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.

The ecommerce industry in Spain was worth 16.26 billion euros last year. About 18.6 million people bought something online, thereby spending on average 876 euros per year. One in five online shoppers used a smartphone or tablet to make purchases online.