The United Kingdom

CarSpring has launched in the United Kingdom. This new online marketplace offers a solution for people who want to buy and sell pre-owned cars. But it's not only that, the startup also wants to take over all the unpopular side effects of car buying: from paperwork to transportation. For example, CarSpring delivers the ordered car right onto the customer's doorstep.

HMV, an entertainment retailer that operates in the United Kingdom and Ireland, is about to launch an official ecommerce website. This will allow consumers to buy online from the company ever since it financially collapsed two years ago.

Ebay is planning to expand its click and collect service across Europe. The American ecommerce company saw its buyers collect 1.5 million parcels from British store chain Argos during the first year and a half the service is running. Ebay noy wants to boost its presence in Europe by entering into several partnerships.

Nimber, the Norwegian service which enables people to "ship anything with someone going that way anyway", is now also available in the United Kingdom. The Brits now can use the peer-to-peer service and send something from one place to another with the help of other people.

Ordering something online and then picking it up in retail stores or other locations is incredibly popular in the United Kingdom. Almost 3 in 4 online shoppers (73%) say they have used click-and-collect services. Another 10 percent of British consumers intends to use the service in the near future.

Poundworld, a popular single price store in the UK, has launched its online store. Most items can be bought for just 1 pound, but there are also items that sell for higher prices. It's an interesting move to see a bargain retailer operating online. It may open doors for others, like discount store-chain Action from the Netherlands.

The yearly Global Retail Ecommerce Index shows that in Europe the UK, Germany and France are still the most attractive ecommerce countries to set ground in. However, the score is highly influenced by the online market size. Smaller countries such as Belgium, Denmark and Spain have less impact but do increase fast in score.

Online fashion retailer Asos reported a 14% rise in revenue for six months to February 28 of this year. Most of the growth is thanks to UK retail sales, which grew from 250 million euros in 2014 to 318 million euros now, which is an increase of 27%. International retail sales grew only by 5%, but this part is still the main driver of the group's revenues of 756 million euros.

Global online sales for women's luxury fashion are expected to grow from a current 3% of the total market to 17% by 2018. By then, this market would be worth 10.92 billion euros. One of the main drivers of this surge is the exceptional expansion in China, but also the solid market growth in developed, Western markets like the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

Product ratings on Google Shopping are now also available for shoppers in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Last year, the product ratings on Product Listing Ads were introduced in the United States, but now select Google users in Europe are also able to make better purchase decisions when shopping online.

The slow start to the year for online sales continued in February. Year-on-year sales went up by 6%, while in February 2014 an annual growth of 18% was recorded. Last month the online sales also decreased by 12% compared to January.

It's great to see new shopping technologies arise on the horizon, but this also means consumer expectations have shifted. They now want online retailers to offer them an enhanced and more consistent shopping experience across channels.

Venstr is a new service in the United Kingdom that has been launched to help online retailers find reliable and trustworthy suppliers, thereby saving them time and money. The name Venstr comes from the ability to give vendors a star-rating.

The German grocery discounter Aldi is planning to launch an online store in the United Kingdom. If all goes as planned, it would be the first time Aldi is active on the ecommerce front in Europe. Aldi has been offering alcoholic drinks online in Australia since 2013, but the UK launch would be the first real online attempt in Europe.

Digital retail group Shop Direct has turned one of its brands into a fully-personalized shopping experience. Online customers who visit the homepage of Very.co.uk will not only see their name turn up in a carousel image, but they will also see their interests reflected in the different parts of the homepage.