The United Kingdom

Aldi today announced it will indeed launch an online store. The discount supermarket will start selling via ecommerce next spring, first by wine by the case and followed by non-food products. Also, the company announced record sales of 9.38 billion euros in the UK and Ireland in its last financial year, which is an increase of 31 percent compared to the year before.

House of Fraser was the absolute winner of the Internet Retailing Awards, which were handed out last Thursday. The British department store group went home with three awards. It won the Innovation award, the Mobile award and the Judges' award. The 5-star luxury hotel Mandarin Oriental in London was where it all happened last week. According to the organization, ‘leading lights’ of the ecommerce and multichannel industries in the United Kingdom attended this event which was all about who would go home as a winner.

Consumers from the United Kingdom and France are most familiar with purchasing flowers online. In the UK, 37 percent of consumers said they had bought a bouquet online at least once in the past year. In France, this share is 32 percent. In these two countries, as well as Germany and the Netherlands, Fleurop/Interflora is the absolute market leader. The question is for how long, as new initiatives arise.

Poundland, a UK retailer that sells products for the fixed £1 price, has launched its first online store. Now customers in the United Kingdom can shop online for more than 2,000 items in categories such as cosmetics, food and drink, health and beauty, DIY and pets.

Rockar is an online car retailer that has partnered up with Hyundai to sell cars to customers. After having launched nine months ago, half of buyers bought a car online, while the other half did this in the only store Rockar currently has. It's a great success. Over 128,000 people have visited the outlet in London, more than the rest of the UK Hyundai network combined.

After opening several physical stores in the United Kingdom last year, American Eagle Outfitters is ready to launch its first localized ecommerce website in the UK. Within the next month the online store will open its doors for British consumers.

A survey among several European countries shows that it's especially the Dutch and Irish consumers who are interested in fashion deals. Italians on the other hand, aren't that keen on such deals. Of all 17 discount categories, coupon codes for women's clothing didn't make into the top 5 of most used discount codes for this country.

Having an efficient delivery management system is important for ecommerce success. Improving your existing delivery service can bring greater returns on your operational spend as well as satisfy your shoppers even more. However, 57% of shoppers think that the current delivery options offered by retailers are not satisfactory.

More than half of UK smartphone owners have abandoned a mobile transaction. Reasons to not go through with a transactions differ, but the most important ones have to do with customer concerns about usability.

Online optical retailer MyOptique Group is expanding its presence in Europe. It acquired German rival 4care and the UK-based online eyewear retailer Eyewearbrands. Earlier this year, MyOptique Group acquired Netzoptiker, another eyewear retailer from Germany. According to the company, it's on track to delivery €100 million sales across Europe this year, with over three million eyewear customers served online.

Amazon has taken over the lease on a warehouse in London that was previously used by Tesco. This fuels rumors that the American ecommerce giant is planning the launch of AmazonFresh in the United Kingdom.

Twitter seems to have great plans when it comes to adopting ecommerce possibilities. The latest news is that it's buy buttons are soon also possible with Shopify stores. It could be the next social platform for Shopify that is already connected to Facebook, Pinterest is connected to Demandware as well. Social media sites are adding buy buttons to their platforms as they try to build new revenue streams from their giant audiences.

The British electronica store Ao.com is building a new distribution center and offices for the European mainland. From there the retailer wants to expand in Germany and around. A launch in markets such as the Netherlands or Austria seems just a matter of time.

Halfords, Britain’s biggest bike retailer, today launche its marketplace service to give customers more choice, with plans to stock up to 40,000 SKU’s. About 25 per cent of the company sales are already made online. The marketplace is powered by Mirakl, that just announced another funding round earlier this week.

Sports Direct announced its online sales hit 551 million euros last year, which is an increase of 14.4% compared to a year before. According to the UK sports retailer, the growth was driven largely by the launch of its click and collect service in the second half of the year. It already accounts for more than 20% of all UK online orders.