Switzerland

Europe is a very complex entity. Similarly, in the area of ecommerce. There are many differences between the nationalities that are spread across the continent. And that's something Zalando, Europe's biggest online fashion retailer, loves to utilize. Now they've shared what they think are the differences between online shoppers in Europe.

B2C Europe, a Dutch company that helps ecommerce businesses to operate over its countries borders, received 7,3 million euro from NIBC. With the money the company aims to continue its growth in target countries such as Italy, Germany, Switzerland and China.

Swiss Post is testing the commercial use of drones. Together with Swiss WorldCargo and Matternet, the postal company is investigating specific uses of drone technology and trying to find out what the cost-effectiveness is of these business ideas. For this purpose it will carry out some drone tests this month.

The online trade in goods in Switzerland grew by around 10% year-on-year in 2014, with foreign suppliers increasing their market share. While Swiss online retailers expect, partly due to mobile traffic, to grow their business further in the upcoming years, they still have to tackle falling prices and increasingly fierce competition from foreign players and omnichannel retailers.

Swiss online couponing site DeinDeal.ch was rewarded as the Swiss ecommerce champion of 2015, during this year's Swiss E-Commerce Awards. But a great deal of the attention also went to Farmy.ch, who won the Newcomer and Startup award, as well as the main category Body & Soul.

Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) and Migros are combining efforts. The two companies are planning a new service, where customers from Migros can order their products online and pick them up half an hour later at the train station. The project will run under the not so surprising name Click & Collect.

Otto, a subsidiary of Otto Group, has set out a multi-store strategy and this seems to pay off. Recently, with the launch of Privileg.de it now has six "sub stores" and together this niche portal generated net sales worth of 70 million euros. No wonder, one of these niches, Schlafwelt.de will now also launch in Austria and Switzerland.

H&M will sell online in Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Switzerland. The Swedish fashion retailer is making a big ecommerce push as it already invested heavily in its online retail site and took several steps to connect its web and mobile assets with its brick-and-mortar stores.

Dutch ecommerce software provider BiedMeer will change its name into CCV Shop starting January 13, 2015. The company was acquired by CCV Group nine months ago and it now wants to use this name to start its services in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland, as the name “BiedMeer” (literally: “offer more”) won’t ring any bells across the Dutch borders.

A recent study on Swiss ecommerce shows that in Switzerland, an online shopper spends an annual average of 1,600 euro, purchasing mainly clothes, transport and books. The total value of ecommerce purchases was about 8,1 billion Swiss Franc, which corresponds to 6,7 billion euros.

AO, the British online retailer of domestic appliances, has launched its German website, but that’s not the only expansion it has planned. AO World is also looking at starting businesses in the Netherlands and Belgium. Austria, Switzerland and France are also potential targets for the retailer that reported some strong growth in revenue for the first half of the year.

Swiss Post has launched a new service. Together with Futurecom Interactive, the postal company is supporting small businesses by offering them a complete set of services that cover the entire ecommerce value chain. Customers can open a one-stop shop and get everything they need for their ecommerce business.

The ecommerce industry in Central Europe has shown an average growth rate of nearly 23% last year. That is a better development than the average European growth of 17.5%. Together, the countries in Central Europe generated online sales worth 93.3 billion euros. Back in 2012 total sales were worth 75.9 billion euros.

UPS has announced the expansion of UPS My Choice and the UPS Access Point network to 15 additional countries, including 12 in Europe. With these two services, online shoppers and global retailers have new personalized solutions to manage residential package deliveries.

PCP.CH has acquired STEG Electronics, which is three times as big. As a result of the merger, PCP.COM Gruppe is now, with 160 million euros worth of revenue, the largest independent retailer on the Swiss computers and electronics market. While the two brands will remain, the merger of the two companies will result in a significant increase in efficiency and strengthen its market position, as PCP.CH wrote in a statement.