The Netherlands

The British online retailer AO World has opened its online store in the Netherlands. After launching in Germany last year, AO now wants to sell household appliances like washing machines and refrigerators to Dutch consumers. It will try to beat the local competition with a best price guarantee, free delivery and trade-in of old products.

Coolblue, a popular retailer from the Netherlands, will now be reselling 'second chance' items, products which have been returned by customers, in its shops for a reduced price. It already sold these products through an outlet section on eBay-owned marketplace Marktplaats, but will now also mention and sell them on product pages in its online stores.

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.

Amazon is currently testing drones for its Amazon Prime Air delivery service in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, as well as in Canada. This was revealed by Amazon's CEO and founder Jeff Bezos. This is interesting news, as the current legislature in the Netherlands doesn't allow autonomous drones yet.

Dutch payment company Adyen announced it achieved 100% transaction volume growth and more than 100% revenue growth in 2015. The company processed 50 billion dollars in transaction volume last year and achieve revenue of 350 million dollars, which corresponds to a growth of more than 100 percent over 2014.

Dutch ecommerce event Webwinkel Vakdagen will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary when it takes place next month. Webwinkel Vakdagen, seen as one of the biggest ecommerce events in Europe, will this year be focusing on the customer experience, customer retention, omnichannel and cross-border.

Private-equity firm Carlyle will acquire Dutch lingerie retailer Hunkemöller from PAI Partners. Capital for the purchase will come from the European-focused buyout fund Carlyle Europe Partners IV. The value of the transaction is not disclosed, but is probably around 440 million euros.

Picnic, the Dutch grocery delivery service which caused quite a stir when it launched this summer, is slowly expanding its service. It started in Amersfoort, the second largest city of the province of Utrecht, but now it also delivers in the neighboring municipality of Leusden. For next year, further expansion is planned.

Dutch lingerie brand Hunkemöller is the winner of the Webshop Award Europe as well as of the Cross Channel Award Europe. It won these two awards during the election of the retailer of the year in Europe. The Retailer of the Year Awards were handed out in nine European countries and of all the winners a European winner was announced in three different categories.

Marktplaats, the popular online classifieds site from the Netherlands, passed the 1 billion mark in number of ads placed. Last Friday it was a man from Rotterdam who placed the billionth advertisement on the eBay-owned website, by offering his drum set for sale.

Fonq.nl, a popular online department store from the Netherlands, is now accepting bitcoins as a payment method. Aside from iDeal, credit card, pay after delivery, PayPal and bank transfer, the online retailer's consumers can now also pay with the digital currency.

AO.com, the largest online kitchen appliance specialist in the United Kingdom, has announced it has plans to launch a dedicated ecommerce website in the Netherlands. The online retailer expects to commence trading in the Netherlands in the spring of next year.

Lightspeed POS, a point-of-sale platform for retailers and restaurants, today announced the acquisition of Dutch ecommerce software company SEOshop. As part of this acquisition, Lightspeed launches its new ecommerce platform, called Lightspeed eCom.

Prestashop, an open-source ecommerce solution from France, has announced it agreed to a partnership with Alipay, Alibaba's leading online payment solution from China. The partnership applies to PrestaShop's customers in the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands and enables retailers to sell their products more easily in China.

The online sales in the Netherlands increased by 20.2 percent in September, compared to the same period last year. This growth is mostly due to the increased online sales of physical retailers, which grew harder than those of online pure players.