The United Kingdom

The Brits have voted for Brexit, which means the United Kingdom will withdraw from the European Union. The whole process of withdrawal will probably take two years, but it's certain Brexit will affect the European ecommerce industry. Here's how.

Ecommerce software provider ePages launched Pay with Amazon for its UK and German based online shop owners. This integration allows the merchants' customers to check out with payment and shipping information stored in their Amazon account, while remaining within an ePages-powered shop throughout the checkout process.

French online shopping club Vente-Privee has launched its first European campaign. With the motto "À la Française", the company advertises on social networks in Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom while using typical clichés about France.

Amazon has launched AmazonFresh in the United Kingdom yesterday. For months, there were serious rumors the American retailer would launch its food delivery service in the UK, but after a long period of preparing and testing AmazonFresh has finally reached the British market.

Rakuten is closing its marketplace in the United Kingdom in August. The online platform will also cease its operations in Spain and move customers and merchants from the Austrian website to the German website. The Japanese company wants to focus fully on France and Germany, where its websites have the scale and potential for sustainable growth.

Online consumer spending in the United Kingdom increased by 8.4 percent in April compared to the same month last year. This annual increase was the fastest seen in the UK ecommerce industry since December 2014. In Ireland, consumers even spent 18.7 percent more in April than they did one year ago.

EKM, the largest hosted ecommerce provider in the UK, has announced it is partnering with Swedish payments company Klarna. Starting today, all new merchants who sign up for a store with EKM will be offered a store and payment solution powered by EKM and Klarna. The new store will have Klarna's checkout pre-installed and ready to go.

The turnover growth of B2C ecommerce in the UK is stabilizing. The online retail industry is expected to grow by 10.5 percent this year to reach 173.7 billion euros. Last year, the British ecommerce industry increased by 11 percent to 157 billion euros.

PureClarity, an ecommerce personalization software solution from the United Kingdom, has been announced the SaaS solution of the year at the European IT & Software Excellence Awards. PureClarity won the award for its personalized search product, which presents website visitors the most relevant products as they use the search function.

Beauty and personal care could be the next big online category in Europe, consulting firm A.T. Kearny thinks. But only if the products and online shops meet the unique needs of consumers. Nonetheless, online sales of beauty and personal care is expected to increase by more than 8 percent year on year until 2019.

Just 56 percent of small and medium-sized online businesses in the United Kingdom sell to customers abroad. That's significantly less than in other major online retail markets. But at the same time there is a high customer demand for British goods. Free shipping could be the answer, PayPal suggests.

The Internet of Things is wildly popular among consumers. UK department store chain John Lewis has now launched a new smart home department to showcase all kinds of gadgets that should make the consumer's life at home more convenient.

It seems like raising the limit on how much people can spend using contactless pay was a good choice. Millions of pounds have been spent by Britons swiping their card or mobile device, since the limit went up from from £20 to £30 in September last year.

Zenstores, a British shipping platform for online sellers, has today launched an integration with WooCommerce, according to Builtwith the most popular ecommerce platform on the web. Ecommerce sellers with a Wordpress site can now manage orders and dispatch items more easily.

German discount retailer Aldi has expanded its range of products that it offers via its British ecommerce website. It added non-food items such as electrical goods and garden tools, after it entered the ecommerce scene in January by offering cases of wines for home delivery.