The United Kingdom

Zalando is introducing shipping costs in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain. The German fashion giant has taken this step after an earlier test in Italy. Although Zalando claims there are no plans to further expand this measure, it seems like the end of an era.

Parcel delivery group DPD has partners with Electric Assisted Vehicles (EAV) to develop a lightweight four-wheel e-cargo bike. With these bikes, DPD will start delivering parcels to consumers in July later this year.

The largest online retailers in the United Kingdom aren't so keen on communicating with shoppers during the delivery period. As a matter of fact, only four of the 100 largest online retailers in the country provide customers with personalized information about their order status, while 27 don't communicate at all during delivery.

Payments provider Square has announced the launch of Square Online Store for sellers in the United Kingdom. This allows small and medium-sized enterprises to sell both online as offline, with a free starter plan.

The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport has compiled a list with the top 30 logistics and service providers in the United Kingdom. Spoiler alert: DPD Group is the number one. But who are the other top logistics companies?

Asos is done with online shoppers who turn out to be serial returners. The UK fashion retailer doesn't want customers who wear their purchases and then return them, or customers who order and return way more items than 'the most loyal Asos customer' would order'. Asos is now threatening to deactivate these accounts.

The Delivery Group announced it has acquired independent postal management provider Onepost. It's unknown how much the UK postal and ecommerce operator paid for Onepost, but it will bring together two major players in the British mail and ecommerce sector.

Most online shoppers would order more in the long-run if an online retailer offers free returns. And a significant 84 percent of shoppers won't even come back to a store if they've encountered a poor returns experience.

Amazon is very popular in the United Kingdom. Recent research shows that almost nine in ten Brits are Amazon shoppers. And last year, more people have increased their shopping with Amazon than decreased it. Seven in ten Amazon users in the UK buy from the ecommerce giant at least once a month.

Ant Financial, the Alibaba-owned fintech company, has acquired currency exchange and payments company WorldFirst. By taking over the UK company, Chinese internet giant Alibaba can take a major step into Europe.

UK fintech company SumUp, which enables small business to accept card payments via the SumUp device and online, has acquired Shoplo. This is a multi-channel ecommerce platform from Poland. With Shoplo, retailers can easily open their store online.

Consumers in the United Kingdom love to shop online at overseas ecommerce websites. As a matter of fact, UK shoppers buy a higher proportion of goods from foreign online stores than almost any other wealthy country. These are the biggest foreign ecommerce markets for UK shoppers.

Online furniture retailer Made has announced that its sales in the United Kingdom hit the 100 million pound mark for the first time last year. In its home country, sales grew 34 percent, while international figures went up by 40 percent. The company will expand to several countries across Europe this year.

Consumers in the United Kingdom spent the most money online on vehicle-related items. Holidays were also a favorite destination for shoppers looking to spend their money online. And it's fashion and fast food takeaways that Britons regretted the most buying online in 2018.

Shoppers from the United Kingdom are planning to spend 25 billion pounds, or 28.3 billion euros, using their smartphones this year. That's an increase of about 66 percent compared to the situation in 2018.