The United Kingdom

Software solutions provider ePages has announced a global partnership with cloud accounting software Sage. Now, online shop owners in the United Kingdom can use ePages and Sage One Software combined for their retail business. Further roll outs across Europe and in the US are planned for the coming months.

Klarna, one of Europe's leading payment providers, has announced it has partnered with Topshop-owner Arcadia Group to launch its sales financing solution 'Buy now pay later' in the United Kingdom. Customers of brands such as Topshop and Miss Selfridge now have the option to buy products online and pay for them over time.

eBay will be introducing a new delivery service later this year. The platform will be built from scratch by Shutl, the company eBay acquired in 2013. This new platform will allow eBay sellers to chooce from a range of delivery options across major UK couriers and print labels.

Amazon has launched its Dash Buttons in the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia, making these the first countries outside the US where Amazon sells its consumer goods-ordering buttons. Now European consumers can also reorder coffee, paper towels and detergent by hitting a simple button.

Shopify has launched its Shopify POS app and card reader for merchants in the United Kingdom. With the reader, retailers can accept contactless and traditional card-based payments, while the app works together with the reader device on an iPhone or iPad.

Online retail sales in the United Kingdom increased by 18.7 percent in July, compared to the same period last year. That's the strongest performance since November 2014. The month-on-month performance of the British ecommerce industry remained flat from the previous month, the growth decreased by 0.4 percent.

Dutch food-order company Takeaway.com has sold its British website to its competitor Just Eat. The news follows just a few weeks after Takeaway.com acquired the Benelux businesses from Just Eat. Both companies couldn't get a grip of the local market: Takeaway.com had trouble conquering the UK, while its presence was too strong in the Netherlands and Belgium for Just Eat to compete there.

It looks like digital payments company Square is coming to Europe after all. The US company, founded by Twitter's co-founder Jack Dorsey, has posted three new job openings in Europe, one of which is based in Dublin and the other two in London.

eBay has launched eBay Local in the United Kingdom. It gives website visitors the opportunity to buy from sellers who live nearby. This should make exchanging goods easier, as customers can pay with cash and collect the items within minutes of agreeing a purchase.

Black Friday is always an exciting time for retailers. In one day they can generate tremendous sales, but they also have to deal with lots of traffic, nagging customers and overworked employees. For this year, ecommerce consultancy Salmon predicts not just Black Friday, but a Black Fiveday week. In the coming 100 days until this event, you should prepare your online business. Here's how.

Essilor International, a leading optics company from France, has acquired UK-based online glasses retailer MyOptique. This ecommerce player operates websites across Europe, such as Glasses Direct and SunGlasses Shop in the UK, Lensbest in Germany, the UK and the Netherlands and Lenson in Sweden.

UK supermarket chain Morrisons will further expand its home delivery service in the United Kingdom after striking a new deal with online supermarket Ocado. Morrisons will now use its own stores to pick products for delivery, thereby doubling its reach.

Luxury fashion retailer Burberry said mobile delivered the majority of the company's growth online. Visits from tablets and smartphones now account for almost 60 percent of traffic to its ecommerce website.

Asos, the popular online fashion retailer from the United Kingdom, thinks it could benefit from the strong depreciation of the pound versus the dollar. The British currency saw a strong decline after the country decided to leave the European Union.

Several European ecommerce companies have started trial delivery using the self-driving robots of Starship Technologies. Online food delivery services Just Eat and Pronto will be using the robots in London, while German retail chain Metro and logistics company Hermes will use the robots in Dusseldorf, Bern and another undisclosed German city.