Turkey

The solid and fast-growing ecommerce market in Turkey has got the attention from several investors. The latest one to show interest is the Abraaj Group. This Dubai-based private equity firm purchased a 25% stake in Hepsiburada, Turkey's largest online retailer. The deal is the latest in a steady stream of online-oriented acquisitions in Turkey.

Annelutfen, a popular Turkish ecommerce site that is focused on the baby and mother market, announced the successful completion of a 4 million dollar investment (€3.35 million) led by Elixir Capital, a Silicon Valley-based private equity fund.

Global investors are looking with increasing interest to the ecommerce industry in Eastern Europe. The growth and trends in this region attracts the attention of international ecommerce players and investors. For example in Turkey, there's a raised interest of investors, mostly in the clothing sectors.

With regards to the financial crisis, Southern Europe is still one of the most damaged regions in Europe. But maybe the ecommerce industry can change this, little by little. It’s estimated that online sales in this region will reach 47.8 billion euros at the end of this year, while this part of Europe also has shown an average annual growth rate of 22% since 2010.

It may not have been all moonlight and roses for Southern Europe with the financial crises countries like Spain, Italy and Greece had to face, but in terms of ecommerce this European region is doing well. It’s expected that the total online economy of sold goods and service in Southern Europe in 2013 amounted to 39,5 billion euros.

Annual growth of ecommerce sales in Eastern Europe outpaced that of Western Europe by 13 percentage points in 2012. For this current year a double digit growth above 20% is expected, although this growth is likely to decrease by 2017. But although Eastern Europe grows faster than Western Europe, the latter is still the one accounting for most of ecommerce sales in the whole of Europe.

Dixons is to sell its French ecommerce business Pixmania, while also getting freed of its loss-making Turkish company ElectroWorld. Four months ago Dixons said it would like to sell Pixmana and if that proved impossible closure of the operation was an option. By selling Pixmania and Electroworld Dixons can now focus on markets where they have leading positions.