Switzerland

ExLibris.ch may call themselves the ecommerce champion of Switzerland for a full year after winning such an award during the Swiss E-commerce Awards. The ecommerce website follows in the footsteps of DeinDeal, PKZ, Zalando and Freitag.

SecurionPay, a fintech company from Switzerland, has launched its new website and wants to further revolutionize the way small businesses approach online payments. By offering for example a drag-and-drop builder to implement payment buttons, SecurionPay wants to ensure merchants can implement payment methods on their ecommerce websites quick and easy.

Bata, a global operating footwear manufacturer and retailer from the Czech Republic, has decided to shut down all its stores in Switzerland where it's headquartered. With customers buying footwear and accessories more and more through multi-brand retailers and ecommerce websites, Bata has been trying to restructure its operations for years. Now it came to the conclusion maintaining the Bata stores in Switzerland wasn't an option anymore.

Fashion Digital Lab, a new center for technology, has launched today in Lugano. The goal is to give a physical form to the digital ecosystem supporting fashion companies. Fashion Digital Lab is powered by ecommerce association NetComm Suisse and investments from public and private operators.

Migros, the largest retailer in Switzerland, has launched a completely new website. The new design and optimized user experience are part of an effort to make the retailer accessible on all devices. The technical realization was built on Magnolia, a Swiss content management platform.

Swiss Post has started in Bern an online marketplace for small businesses. This platform, called Kaloka, will take care of the entire ecommerce value chain, from online store to logistics. The postal service of Switzerland will also integrate local startups into the project and offers a SMS-butler.

Swiss online shoppers bought goods online with a total value of 7.2 billion Swiss francs, or 6.6 billion euros, last year. The online retail sector in Switzerland increased by 7.5 percent in 2015 and now also accounts for 7.5 percent of the total retail sector in this Central-European country.

Cargo Sous Terrain (CST) has plans to run an underground freight transport system in Switzerland. In the tunnels, autonomous vehicles will transport pallets and packages between major cities and towns in the Central-European country. The group hopes to have this innovative network up and running by 2030.

Outfittery has expanded its service throughout Europe by offering a free pick-up service. This will make it even easier for customers to return items they don't like: Outfittery will pick up the items at the customer's home without asking any fee for it.

Groupon closed the doors of 4  European websites. After closing its operations in Greece, Turkey and the Nordic countries, the American ecommerce marketplace is now shutting down in Ukraine, Portugal, Switzerland and Austria. Since yesterday, these websites no longer offer customers interesting deals from local retailers.

The ecommerce market in Switzerland increased by 13 percent from last year, now reaching a value of 9.1 billion Swiss francs or 8.4 billion euros. The growth of the online retail industry may have had something to do with the high online shopping penetration. Of all 16-65 year olds in Switzerland, 90 percent purchased at least once online in the last twelve months.

Consumers in Switzerland can now order products from the German, French or Italian Amazon and get it delivered for free. At least, if the value of their shopping cart is worth 49 euros or more. This will have a huge influence on the Swiss ecommerce industry, Netcomm Suisse says. "It will raise the bar in competitiveness, but will also push ecommerce operators to further improve their offer."

Swisscom and Coop are allowed to build their joint online marketplace Siroop. The two companies want to defy the American ecommerce giant Amazon in Switzerland by launching their own ecommerce platform. The Swiss competition authority has now greenlighted the project.

Fashion retailer H&M will soon launch an online store in Switzerland. It's not officially announced yet, but all the indications are that the Swedish company will open its Swiss online store in just a few days. In the physical stores the upcoming opening of the ecommerce site was already announced over the loudspeakers.

Germany, Austria and Switzerland are a lot alike when it comes to ecommerce. There are several big online stores that are very popular across these German-speaking countries. Let's have a look at the biggest online stores in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.