Spain

The self-appointed ‘biggest online music store in The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg’ is planning to spread throughout more countries in Europe. Earlier this year Bax-shop already launched online stores in France (Bax-shop.fr) and Germany (Bax-shop.de). Sweden, Italy, UK and Spain are on the list for next year.

Online sales in the Canary Islands are one of the main challenges for ecommerce companies selling their products in Spain. The islands, including Tenerife, Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria, are known for its special taxation, which make it not a very popular shipping destination for online stores. The ecommerce industry in the Canaries however generated a turnover of 278.6 million euros in 2012.

Staples has drastically improved the ecommerce experience on their key websites in Europe, including Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. This got combined with a refreshed look and feel of the online storefronts. With the update, omni-channel shopping must be easier for Staples' customers.

The ecommerce industry is constantly changing. Similarly in Spain, where ecommerce still isn't as mature as in other big European countries. As a matter of fact, ecommerce in Spain only accounts for 5% of total ecommerce sales in Europe. But maybe the next six ecommerce trends may change this…

The rapid growth of ecommerce in Spain (and pretty much everywhere) has been a great incentive for small and medium businesses to step into the online world. But although a large percentage of companies already have an online presence, yet few have an ecommerce website.

Hema is expanding its online presence in Europe by selling items via marketplaces Amazon and La Redoute. This is Hema's way to test the water in countries like Spain and the United Kingdom. By selling via popular marketplaces Hema can get foreign shoppers acquainted with the Dutch company.

Kiala, which sends parcels to over 11,700 convenient collection points throughout Western Europe, has enabled merchants to get their goods delivered to other countries where Kiala is active. From now one, an online merchant sending parcels using Kiala can also send these parcels to the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and Spain.

Eight in ten Spanish inhabitants rate the general economic situation in Spain as bad or very bad. And 23 percent thinks that within a year the situation will be even worse than it is now. And it seems the situation isn't any better online. In the past twelve months, only 36.5 percent made a purchase on the internet.

Facebook is a very popular social network amongst European online retailers. Except for the United Kingdom, where online retailers are more active on Twitter. But Twitter is however still less popular in the UK than in other countries like Germany or Spain. These two countries have the most social media savvy online retailers, as 90% of them are on Facebook and 80% are on Twitter.

Inditex gets some serious competition, now Amazon has opened an online clothing store in Spain. It offers a 700,000-item catalogue featuring 2,000 labels. It's the fourth online clothing store Amazon opens in Europe, after the United Kingdom, Germany and France got their own Amazon clothing stores.

There are approximately 85,000 active online stores in Spain. One in four of these online shops is based on the ecommerce software from PrestaShop. Magento and OpenCart are also quite popular. This may be the first time someone has really tried to figure out how many online stores there active in Spain.

The People's Party in Spain rejected an amendment in the Senate from the Canarian Coalition, who wanted better ecommerce support for the Canary Islands. The Canarian nationalist political party would like to end discrimination towards the islands with regards to ecommerce. Online retailers now have to pay a lot to ship orders to the mainland of Spain.

Dutch company WebwinkelKeur has announced today the launch of its Spanish equivalent eValor. In the Netherlands, WebwinkelKeur is known for the fact merchants can put its trade mark on their site, after which a page with customer experiences is implemented.

Market expansion is seen as a real ecommerce growth opportunity this year. Almost nine in ten European executives, surveyed by CyberSource, are planning to increase focus on expanding their ecommerce business into new markets in 2014. Emerging economies like Russia, Brazil and China are amongst the most popular destinations.

It may not have been all moonlight and roses for Southern Europe with the financial crises countries like Spain, Italy and Greece had to face, but in terms of ecommerce this European region is doing well. It’s expected that the total online economy of sold goods and service in Southern Europe in 2013 amounted to 39,5 billion euros.