Sweden

Cristina Stenbeck, former chairman of Swedish investment company Kinnevik, has invested 18 million Swedish kronor (1.69 million euros) in Caliroots. The Swedish omnichannel retailer of sneakers and streetwear just announced it made a loss of about 3.75 million euros last year.

Ecommerce in Sweden is expected to be worth 16.86 billion euros at the end of this year. The Swedish business-to-consumer ecommerce turnover was worth 14.95 billion euros last year and it's predicted this will increase by 12.8 percent.

Henri Lloyd, a brand from the UK that's specialized in sailing clothing, has relaunched its online store. This is the result of a digital transformation the brand has gone through since it was acquired by Aligro Group last year.

Barely two years after Klarna announced its peer-to-peer payment app called Wavy, the Swedish company pulls the plug on the app. Some functions of the social payment application will be integrated into the Klarna app.

Delivery Hero has bought another competitor in Europe. This time it's Swedish food delivery service Hungrig.se. As a result, the German company is now active with three different brands in Sweden.

Zalando is slowly ending its free delivery service in Europe. It started last November in Italy and now more and more markets are starting to ask for a delivery fee. Latest markets to be hit by this decision are Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

iDeal of Sweden is expecting to double its revenue this year and is now investing heavily in its ecommerce operations. The smartphone accessories retailer has move to a new ecommerce platform and is ready to open business in over 30 new markets.

The ecommerce industry in the Nordic countries was worth 230.2 billion Swedish kronor, or 21.87 billion euros, in 2018. The biggest share of this online turnover comes from Sweden, which also has the highest proportion of people shopping online.

Fashion retailer Zalando will expand its relatively new beauty category in Europe. Over the next two months, the German ecommerce company will start selling its beauty products in Sweden, Denmark, France, Belgium and Italy.

Zalando has opened a new fulfillment center in Sweden. In Brunna, near Stockholm, the online fashion player has opened a fulfillment center that's approximately 30,000 square meters big and gives place to around 500 employees as well as 50 autonomous mobile robots.

Ecommerce software provider Shopify has acquired the Swedish startup Tictail. The news was confirmed when merchants using Tictail tried to log in and got a message about the ecommerce platform joining Shopify.

Online fashion retailer Chiquelle will soon send items customs free to its customers in Norway. The Swedish company was already active in its neighboring country, but until now Norwegian customers needed to pay a customs processing fee.

Klarna has launched its own financing program for SME retailers in Europe. The new initiative is called Boost and is aimed to further support retailers in accelerating their growth. The company promises the application process will be simple and straightforward.

Zalando, the personal styling service of Zalando, has expanded to Sweden. The company has also made a French version of its service available to its customers in Belgium and Switzerland. Zalon by Zalando is now available in six markets across Europe.

Centra, an ecommerce software provider from Sweden, is ready to conquer the international market. The company, which focuses on online retailers active in the fashion and lifestyle industry, has not made any marketing efforts to date, but is now recruiting marketing, sales and support people to meet the increased demand and to grow internationally.