Spain

Mercadona, a Spanish supermarket chain from Valencia, has expanded its new online shopping service to customers in Barcelona. The launch of the online store follows after opening a new distribution center in the Catalan city.

Ecommerce in Spain was worth 27.96 billion euros in 2018. That's an increase of 17 percent compared to the previous year. For this year, a growth of about 20 percent is expected, which would mean ecommerce in Spain will be worth 33.56 billion euros at the end of 2019.

Lidl is selling its groceries online in Spain. The delivery of fresh foods though is only available in Madrid for now. To get the products to customers' homes, Lidl is working together with online food platform Lola Market.

AliExpress has opened its marketplace to welcome non-Chinese sellers. The Alibaba-owned business-to-consumer marketplace has changed its business model to better compete with Amazon. Online retailers from Spain, Italy, Turkey and Russia now have access to the Chinese platform.

Zalando is introducing shipping costs in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain. The German fashion giant has taken this step after an earlier test in Italy. Although Zalando claims there are no plans to further expand this measure, it seems like the end of an era.

Correos, the national postal service of Spain, is teaming up with ecommerce giant AliExpress and Alibaba's logistics data platform operator Cainiao Network. The companies want to better support small and medium-sized enterprises in Spain to grow into new markets, such as China.

ReBuy, an online platform for buying and selling refurbished consumer electronics, has expanded in Europe. The company has launched its online store in both Italy and Spain. The company already runs its online platform in German, the United Kingdom, France, Austria and the Netherlands.

Correos, the national postal service of Spain, has distributed more than 106 million packages in 2018. This represents an increase of 61 percent compared to the total amount of packages it managed during the year before.

Ten leading global online grocery markets are predicted to generate combined sales of almost 200 billion euros, at an annual rate of 20 percent, by 2023. And four of them are from Europe. The United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain are predicted to have the highest online grocery market sizes in Europe.

Spanish pharmacy network Promofarma wants to deliver products to customers a lot faster than it currently does and is thus testing one-hour delivery. The new service will initially start only in Spain, but expanding to other countries in Europe is something they are thinking about.

Micolet is a new online marketplace that sells second-hand clothing for women. What's interesting about Micolet, is that it enables customers from Europe to shop second-hand clothing from other countries.

Cdiscount Marketplace is busy expanding outside of France. The online marketplace now also delivers some items to Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain. This means, the 10,000 connected sellers suddenly get access to a new 200 million customer base.

Viniexport, an online marketplace from Italy that enables companies to buy and sell wine worldwide, has secured a 2 million euros funding round. With the money, the marketplace wants to pursue its European expansion.

Spanish fashion giant Inditex says online sales now account for 10 percent of its global total. In 47 markets around the world, Inditex has one or several ecommerce platforms available and these online sales increased by 41 percent compared to last year.

21Buttons, a social-commerce fashion app from Spain, has raised almost 15 million euros in a Series B round led by Idinvest Partners. With the fresh capital, 21Buttons wants to invent in talent traction for tech and product profiles, and user acquisition.