Sweden

Sales in the grocery trade in Sweden increased by 3.1 percent during the full year 2019. The fastest growth was noticeable in the ecommerce, as store sales increased by 2.8 percent, while ecommerce grew 21.9 percent.

Qliro Group, a Nordic ecommerce group that currently consists of marketplace CDON, payments company Qliro and fashion retailer Nelly.com, is transforming. CDON will move out and become an independent company, while Nelly will remain. As a result, Qliro Group will be renamed Nelly Group.

Flowbox, a Swedish startup focused on user-generated content, has raised 7.5 million euros from Viking Venture, a leading software investor from the Nordics. With the money, Flowbox wants to further expand in Europe.

Ecommerce continues to drive growth for PostNord. The Swedish logistics group delivered just over 50 million parcels in the fourth quarter of 2019. And for the full year, B2C volumes increased by 10 percent compared to the year before.

Fashion brand Chiquelle is moving its warehouse operations. Currently these are located in Arlandastad, outside Stockholm, but after the Christmas holidays, the Swedish company will move its warehouse to the Netherlands.

Same-day-delivery is an increasingly popular method of delivery for online orders. But such a service costs money, of course. In Sweden, it seems that four in ten consumers don't want to pay a thing for same-day-delivery.

Omoda, a Dutch omnichannel shoe retailer, is expanding in Europe. After it opened online stores in countries nearby, the company is now ready to expand to Scandinavia. This year, an online store in Denmark will open and next year, Sweden, Norway and Finland are next.

Dustin, a Swedish reseller of IT products and services, has launched its online store in the Netherlands. The company was already active in the Nordics, but after acquiring Dutch Vince Groep last year, the IT company is now also active in the Netherlands.

Online white goods retailer Tretti is investing in physical stores across Sweden. In addition to the previously announced flagship store in Stockholm, Tretti will also open physical stores in Helsingborg, Halmstad and Umeå.

H&M continues to invest in Sellpy, an online platform for second-hand fashion. The Swedish fashion retail group started investing in Sellpy four years ago and has since then joined all investment rounds. Now, H&M has become a majority owner, with an approximate 70 percent stake in the re-commerce platform.

H&M may change its business model in the near future. The Swedish fashion giant will experiment with selling external brands and products on both its online platform and in selected stores.

Fashion retailer Chiquelle has launched its augmented reality shopping app. The Swedish company's latest app enables users to customize their own model and style it with fashion items sold by Chiquelle. Users can also add makeup and different hairstyles to the avatar.

Zalando is launching a pilot with reusable packaging. The test will run for four weeks and is aimed at customers in Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. During the pilot, 10,000 customers will receive their orders in reusable shipping bags, so the German fashion company can reduce the packaging waste.

HelloFresh has set foot in Scandinavia. The German meal kit delivery service has launched in Sweden. "We are sure Swedish customers will love our product, and we can't wait for them to try it", co-founder Thomas Griesel commented.

On average, parcels that are transported from Sweden to Finland take 5.6 days to reach their destination. Once the border is crossed, the average delivery time is 1.8 days.