The United Kingdom

Dutch marketing agency Shop2market expands its international focus, opening an office in London. By adding a UK-based team the company is actively looking across the border, since it also has offices in The Netherlands and France. In the UK, Shop2market has clients such as Made.com, Dune London, Bottica and Cotsworld Outdoor.

Failing with online delivery comes with a price. For retailers and market place sellers in the United Kingdom this cost add up to almost 1 billion euros this year alone. Failed deliveries are in any case something online retailers would be better off without, but seeing the number of 1 billion euros per year makes you wonder why so much deliveries have to fail in the first place.

Just Eat has shown some pretty big growth during the first half six months of this year. Its revenue grew by almost sixty percent compared to the same period last year, while its profit went up almost 600% in the past six months. But not all is positive for the UK-headquartered company, as revenue in Belgium and the Netherlands declined.

Groupon today has announced it's overhauling its UK website and mobile apps, in order to transform from a daily deal site into an online marketplace. The redesigned website, with new search, browse and location features, has already launched in the US last year, but is now also live in the UK. The merchant pages have to pull more visitors to the website.

An online store that claimed to ‘deliver anywhere’ in its TV ad, lost a battle started by a costumer living on the Scottish Shetland Islands who complained the ad is misleading because the company refused to deliver to the Scottish Island.

The self-appointed ‘biggest online music store in The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg’ is planning to spread throughout more countries in Europe. Earlier this year Bax-shop already launched online stores in France (Bax-shop.fr) and Germany (Bax-shop.de). Sweden, Italy, UK and Spain are on the list for next year.

You would expect online consumers in the United Kingdom could buy anything they want at local online stores, but still 48% of have made an online purchase with a retailer based outside the country. And it's not only because of availability, the price also plays its part.

Pop-up stores are very popular in the United Kingdom, as about 23,400 people  work in nearly 10,000 pop-up shops across the country. Together, this group of retailers contribute 2,6 billion euros to the British economy each year, which is equivalent to 0,6% of total UK retail turnover. And the industry could grow even faster, if there weren’t that much barriers.

Boohoo has launched its website in Germany, making this the fourth European country where it has an online store. The German website follows the launch of Boohoo in Spain back in May and the launch of Boohoo in France nine months ago. The launch of Boohoo in Germany will be accompanied by a marketing campaign.

Staples has drastically improved the ecommerce experience on their key websites in Europe, including Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. This got combined with a refreshed look and feel of the online storefronts. With the update, omni-channel shopping must be easier for Staples' customers.

The Mobile Innovations Award is a new award show for the EMEA region, to celebrate the enormous growth and innovation in mobile technology. Last week, the awards got presented in the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane, London and we have the full list of winners.

The ecommerce industry in the United Kingdom experienced the weakest sales growth between May and June since the same period in 2008. And with 9% year-on-year growth in June, online sales in the Western-European country also recorded the lowest annual growth since July 2013.

Online is the fastest growing channel in the British grocery market and is now worth almost 10 billion euros. And 29% of more than 1,000 shoppers polled by research agency Shoppercentric said they bought groceries online in the past month. It seems at the moment the online grocery market in the UK is one of few in Europe that has some serious legitimacy.

Click and collect is getting more and more popular in the United Kingdom. As a matter of fact, there are more customers who pick up their orders in-store in the United Kingdom than there are in the United States.

DHL will invest 195 million euros (£156 million) in the United Kingdom. It invests heavily in the East Midlands and Heathrow, by improving the sorting and aircraft landing facilities at these sites. It will be Deutsche Post DHL’s largest investment in the UK in 14 years.