The United Kingdom

'Buy now, pay later' (BNPL) is becoming increasingly popular. One in five UK consumers are planning to use these services during Christmas, to spread out the costs. But the increasing popularity has also caused an increase in outstanding debt amongst UK shoppers.

eBay has signed a partnership agreement with InPost, the Polish ecommerce delivery company. Sellers on eBay now get access to InPost's parcel lockers throughout the UK. The move will provide sellers with more flexible postal solutions.

The ecommerce giant Amazon is planning to stop accepting payments made with Visa credit cards in the UK, starting next year. Customers are being encouraged to change their default payment method. "We're very disappointed that Amazon is threatening to restrict consumer choice", said Visa.

Marketplaces are now a starting point in 44 percent of all product searches. This is more than twice the number of searches in search engines. Brand loyalty seems to be less important to consumers, as marketplaces are almost 5 times more likely to be a starting point to research products than a brand's own website.

Logistics company Whistl has acquired Relish, a product sampling specialist. For now, Relish will remain as a standalone brand. Thanks to the acquisition, Whistl can expand its range of channels available to customers.

Due to the fast growth of ecommerce within the UK, many ecommerce companies have seen their data needs increase. Now, 57 percent of retail and ecommerce companies are scraping external public web data. External data can help their marketing and implement effective pricing strategies.

Printful, a printing and fulfilment service from Latvia, is opening a fulfilment center in the United Kingdom. The branch will be operational by the end of this year. The company also has plans for a new facility in Poland, amounting to a total of five European branches.

Yesterday, the Ecommerce Awards 2021 were handed out. The award show was a part of the Ecommerce Expo, and took place virtually due to coronavirus regulations. A total of 21 different ecommerce players won awards.

British marketplace seller and tech startup Boulevard has raised 2.5 million euros in seed capital. The company, only having started their supply chain services last year, will use the funds to diversify and further develop their in-house software. The investment comes at a time when marketplaces continue to thrive in a post-pandemic landscape.

PayPal will raise the fees for payments between businesses in the United Kingdom and those in Europe. The reason for this price increase is Brexit. With the UK no longer being part of the European Economic Area, PayPal's costs are higher than usual.

Add to Cart is a new ecommerce marketplace from the United Kingdom. It wants to compete with other online marketplaces by focusing primarily on supporting small scale businesses. The marketplace works alongside sellers' existing sales platforms.

Fruugo, an online marketplace that's originally from Finland, is said to be planning to launch an initial public offering (IPO). The UK-based ecommerce platform should go public as soon as this fall.

Amazon sellers in the United Kingdom account for 5.5 percent of the country's entire monthly retail turnover. Every week, just 13,500 Amazon UK sellers generate sales worth hundreds of millions.

Online retailers in the UK lose more than 1.8 billion pounds (2.13 billion euros) annually due to the lack of payment methods available for their customers. This was discovered in new research amongst regular online shoppers.

About 3.4 million square meters of warehouse space in the United Kingdom is slated for construction this year. That's an increase of more than 60 percent compared to the situation one year before.