DHL Supply Chain is the new logistics service provider for Reflaunt, a technology platform that enables branded fashion resale. The collaboration shows the growth and potential of recommerce in Europe.

DHL and Reflaunt claim to have found a solution to the challenge of scalability in successfully reselling fashion items. According to the press release, following a successful one-year pilot with DHL Supply Chain in Poland, Reflaunt will now be able to offer their customers a platform that redefines how brands power their resale operations; bringing together scalability, infrastructure, and cost management.

Under the arrangement, brands contract with Reflaunt to manage their resale operations. All products are handled and authenticated by DHL personnel at DHL facilities. The logistics service provider picks up, inspects, grades, and photographs the products before adding them to Reflaunt’s proprietary technology. DHL also manages inventory, storage, fulfillment, and outbound distribution. According to Reflaunt, the partnership will expand its recommerce capabilities and further reshape the dynamics of fashion resale.

Reflaunt services Concierge and Takeback are already operational with brands like Altuzarra, Balenciaga, Harvey Nichols, and Net-a-porter. The services are fully integrated into a European DHL Supply Chain warehouse operation. Reflaunt reaches more than thirty platforms for outbound sell-through, including eBay, Rebelle, Saks OFF 5th, Vestiaire Collective, and Yoox.

With its new logistics partner, Reflaunt will be able to maximize the sell-through of items, including returns, providing brands with “a comprehensive solution that mitigates the complexities of the resale market”, the company states. According to CEO Stephanie Crespin, Reflaunt brings circular fashion closer by tearing down walls between 1st and 2nd hand, and between ecommerce and recommerce.

The European recommerce market is booming, with Amazon already booking over a billion euros per year in second-hand shopping revenue. Last week, Wish announced a European trade-in service.

A report from the insurance provider Chubb found that the ecommerce problems of most concern among consumers regarding social commerce were different from those expressed by retailers.

Notably, the report found that consumers tend to trust social media commerce marketplaces more than other channels. Social media commerce platforms were trusted by 85% of the survey-takers who used them. Traditional ecommerce platforms, however, had a trust rating of only 48%. Physical stores, meanwhile, scored a trust rating of 70%, and companies’ own digital storefronts had a trust rating of 55%.

The survey was commissioned by the insurance provider Chubb and performed by the firm iResearch. The authors assessed perspectives from 500 adult consumers, as well as 525 online merchants.

Consumer responses showed that 75% of those taking the survey had been victims of financial fraud. Delivery delays were also common, showing up in 61% of responses. That category was followed by lost payments due to glitches in the purchasing process (55%). Behind that was frequently receiving damaged items (42%).

Comfort levels with social media shopping tended to decrease among older generations, with Gen Z showing the highest rate of activity. 46% of Gen Z participants in the survey were comfortable with buying via social media, compared to 30% of millennials, 22% of Gen X shoppers, and 0% of baby boomers.

Putting those results into context, the report’s authors framed trust gaps as one biggest ecommerce problems and a major obstacle to customer loyalty.

According to Amy McNeece, senior vice president of digital consumer partnerships for Chubb in North America, no matter whether it’s on social media or on e-commerce platforms, the customer journey must be simple, easy and give the consumer confidence as their trust is fragile. Delivery issues, damaged products and online scams can all shatter consumer trust in an instant, and customer loyalty is critical in the age of digital commerce.

Trust tended to skew higher in Latin America versus other regions. Shoppers there buying online at least three times per month (75%) showed up at a higher rate than North America (62%), Europe (59%) and Asia-Pacific countries (56%).

Latin America’s fast-paced online shopping reveals a savvy digital consumer. This has been driven by mobile and social media leapfrog behaviors during the last decade. The emerging middle-class consumer has access, thanks to e-commerce platforms, to a wider and broader range of services than through traditional channels.

As for retailers, the Chubb report spotlighted another set of unique ecommerce problems with social media channels. 81% of retailers said they sold through social media marketplaces, and three-quarters indicated that they used social media front-end experiences for marketing. However, trust elsewhere remained a challenge, according to the findings.

Just 35% of online merchants expressed trust in social commerce marketplaces for inventory management. Results were also below 40% for ease of navigation (30%), refunds and returns (31%), shipping and fulfillment (33%) and payment processing (35%).

This skepticism was further illustrated by 70% of retailers indicating that items they sold on social media marketplaces were not delivered in what they considered to be good condition. That failure rate was lower (54%) for goods sold via ecommerce platforms. In addition, 65% of merchants cited a lack of delivery options. 60% mentioned an overall lack of control regarding the state of the goods being delivered to be a problem.

The amount of online shoppers in Europe decreased 1 percent in 2023. However, the amount of regular online shoppers has remained stable. And 7 out of 10 of these regular online shoppers were active on C2C platforms, where they bought or sold secondhand products.

These data come from the E-shopper Barometer 2023 by Geopost, a French logistics company. The report gives insight into the latest developments and trends in online shopping. More than 24,000 Europeans in 22 countries, between the ages of 18 and 70, participated.

According to the report, the share of European online shoppers has decreased slightly in the last two years. Both in 2022 and 2023, the share dropped 1 percentage point. The share of regular online shoppers remained stable. According to 65 percent of them, online shopping is a way to save money.

The use of consumer-to-consumer (C2C) platforms is very common for these regular shoppers. At least 70 percent bought or sold on these platforms in 2023. A third said that their purchases of secondhand products had increased. And consumers mostly sold on these platforms to free up space at home.

There are differences when we look at consumers in each countries. Within the Netherlands, 77 percent of online shoppers bought or sold on secondhand platforms. In Italy, that share was 66 percent. In the United Kingdom, the share was 74 percent, in Germany it was 73 percent and in France it was 75 percent.

At the same time, social media is also ingrained in online shopping. Last year, 70 percent of regular online shoppers used social media to get inspiration or information. And 48 percent bought products directly through social media platforms.

Last week, Shopify has launched its Winter ’24 Edition, which includes more than 100 product updates to its ecommerce platform. These include features to make international selling easier. Merchants can now add a localized online store for up to 3 markets.

The ecommerce software provider launches a Shopify Edition twice a year. It catalogs every platform update from the past six months. These include new features in product merchandising, like color swatches and a file picker where all media files on Shopify are available.

Last year, the company increased the prices of its subscription plans. With the newest updates, all subscriptions have new features as well.

Merchants now have the option to start a localized store with custom markets. They can tailor their store for each market. According to Shopify, doing so will result in higher conversion. As a result, these features make cross-border selling easier for merchants.

The localized store includes a tailored storefront and layout, accounting for regional and cultural differences per market. Other possibilities are currency conversion, setting prices per market, translating your content per market and using local payment methods.

The feature is included in all pricing plans. Merchants can create 3 localized stores. And only sellers using the Advanced plan can add more markets, for almost 60 euros per market.

Recommerce is a relatively new term, which includes solutions like repair, remanufacturing, rental services, reconditioning, refurbishing, and resale. Online marketplaces such as Vinted are good examples of c2c recommerce marketplaces.

In 2022/23, the European recommerce market was valued at 94 billion euros. The market share, compared to the total European ecommerce market, is now 12.3 percent. It is expected to increase to 14 percent in the next three years.

According to a research by Cross-Border Commerce Europe, the recommerce market is projected to grow 5 times faster than the overall retail market by 2025. A previous research indicated that the recommerce market was worth 75 billion euros in 2021.

The researchers already projected that the market will be worth 120 billion euros by 2025. With the market’s current growth, that is still to be expected. This means that the market value will increase 27 percent in the next three years.

According to the research, 76 percent of online shoppers think that the attitude to second-hand shopping has improved. And according to 41 percent, buying second-hand has even become a status symbol. This shows that the image of the recommerce market is still improving.

At least 85 percent of shoppers either bought or sold used goods last year. And 27 percent did that for the first time. 69 percent of sellers in the recommerce market said the money they made helped them pay bills. And 39 percent said that reselling helped them make ends meet.

Many consumers have turned to recommerce for its sustainable image, but the researchers say that there are some limitations to it. Reselling is a positive step, but its benefits could be limited if buyers choose second hand clothes in addition to, rather than instead of, new outfits. Rentals could be more detrimental to the environment, primarily due to the transportation involved in exchanging shared goods. Online peer-to-peer rental platforms offering multi-category fashion products promote sustainability but also increase ‘last mile’ logistics routes for cleaning services.

In the manifesto prepared in the lead-up to the elections for a new European Parliament, Ecommerce Europe states that it is more important for online sellers that existing rules are enforced than the introduction of new rules.

Ecommerce Europe is the united voice of the European Digital Commerce sector, representing the interests of companies selling goods and services online to consumers in Europe as their official website presents.

Ecommerce Europe describes its manifesto as “a way forward for the European Union to unlock the potential of the European economy and the digital commerce sector”. According to the interest group, this ambition can only be realized by adhering to a set of guiding principles, with enforcement priority being a prominent one: “Think enforcement first, and new rules second.”

Ecommerce Europe also calls for understanding companies’ realities to design rules they can comply with, to respect better regulation principles, and to ensure coherence across legislations. Another principle regarding regulations is “Think small first, to work for the 90% of companies making up our economy.”

Other prerequisites include the preservation of channel-neutrality, the assurance of harmonization, and the defense of a level playing field for all companies. “By following these principles when regulating any aspect of the economy, we could ensure that the common objective of a green, digital, and inclusive economy is fulfilled, “ the manifesto says.

Ecommerce Europe has put forward concrete policy priorities for the new EU mandate, including closing the loop on the EU circular single market, streamlining data requirements, and leveraging digital tools to improve consumer information. All the priorities are developed in its manifesto.

The elections for the European Parliament take place from June 6 to 9. According to Ecommerce Europe, in the next five years ecommerce in Europe will play a crucial role to realize continental economical ambitions.

After years of tempered growth, European online spending will grow more rapidly in the coming years, according to the group, reaching an estimated 30 percent of retail sales by 2030.

Using Shopify Collabs, creators can discover and partner with Shopify’s millions of merchants, and independent brands can reach new consumers.

Most creators can’t support themselves full time. Discovering brands and establishing partnerships is cumbersome, and creators want to spend their time making content, the official website says.

With Shopify Collabs, creators can easily discover and partner with merchants to build curated shops and share products that reflect their own interests, accelerating their path to entrepreneurship.

Shopify’s goal is to bring economic independence to creators seeing them as a new generation of entrepreneurs. They use their creativity to engage audiences across the internet. Despite the size of the total creator economy, estimated to be worth over $100B, most creators struggle to make money and become independent. Just 4% of creators make content full time.

For merchants, the creator economy presents a new way to find new consumers, at a time when acquiring customers has become increasingly difficult and expensive. Creators are trusted by audiences who look to them to share product recommendations they know they’ll love.

With Collabs, Shoppify is bringing brands and creators together, making it simple for creators to monetize while giving merchants a new sales and marketing channel. For consumers, that will mean hearing about the world’s best independent brands and products from creators they trust.

Collabs helps creators monetize by discovering and partnering with the independent brands their audiences will love.

With Shopify Collabs, creators of all kinds can now easily browse, discover and partner with Shopify’s millions of merchants for free.

Collabs gives merchants a new channel to find highly engaged consumers.

Shopify merchants can use Collabs to discover and manage their relationships with creators, giving them a new sales and marketing channel to find and engage with high-impact audiences. Once merchants install Collabs and make their store and products discoverable, creators can apply to join that merchant’s community. Shopify Collabs can then be used to manage the relationship with that creator, supplying everything they need, like unique links or discount codes, to share that merchant’s products with their audiences. Because Collabs is built on Shopify, the entire process is managed centrally from the merchant’s Shopify admin, which means inventory, order, and customer information are kept up to date, giving a real-time view of the merchant’s entire multichannel sales.

Shopify powers commerce for the creator economy

Shopify Collabs is our latest step in building for creators and making new modes of commerce possible for merchants of all kinds. Here’s what else creators and merchants can do today on Shopify: launch a simple mobile-friendly store with Shopify’s Starter plan; make their link in bio shoppable with Linkpop; integrate directly with the world’s most important social and entertainment platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Spotify, Google, YouTube, Pinterest; and more.

Shopify Collabs is available to all merchants in the US and Canada today.

The past two years have been highly challenging for the event industry, thanks to COVID-19. This will probably continue into the foreseeable future.

However, even COVID-19 hasn’t stopped eCommerce advocates from coming together to share the latest trends and practices of eCommerce. If there’s one positive effect of COVID, it’s the rapid increase in eCommerce usage worldwide and the ability of businesses to adapt their practices to cope with large numbers of people ordering their products from the comfort and safety of their homes.

Top eCommerce Events for 2022:

1. Sell + Scale Summit

Location: Las Vegas, NV

Date: September 19-22, 2022

The conference will bring together a community of growing and established sellers, industry experts, and guest speakers for unparalleled education and networking.

2. iMedia Online Retail Summit New Zealand

Location: Taupo, New Zealand

Dates: 22 – 24 August 2022

The iMedia Online Retail Summit NZ is an invite-only event for the leading senior eCommerce professionals in New Zealand. The 2.5-day event will include one-on-one meetings, breakout sessions, and interactive roundtable.

3. ECPAKLOG E-Commerce Packaging & Supply Chain Expo

Location: Shanghai, China

Dates: 21 – 23 September 2022

The event takes a look at the products, technologies, and services needed by the eCommerce industry. It also explores the challenges and future trends of the industry.

4. China (Shenzhen) International Cross-border eCommerce Supply Chain Fair 2022

Location: Shenzhen, China

Dates: 22 – 24 September 2022

This event is aimed at small and medium-sized foreign trade factories that are in urgent need of transforming and upgrading their import and export cross-border eCommerce platforms.

5. eCommerce Expo

Location: London, UK

Dates: 28 – 29 September 2022

Whether you’re a multichannel, pure play, B2B, or B2C retailer or brand, this in-person event is a must. There will be eight conference theaters with diverse streams and sessions as well as real sessions with a real audience and many unique networking opportunities.

6. White Label World Expo (New York)

Location: New York, USA

Date: 29 September – 30 September 2022

The White Label World Expo is the leading US wholesale, eCommerce, and product branding event. It showcases the latest and most effective strategies and innovations in retail and emerging markets. It’s anticipated that 2022’s event will attract about 10,000 attendees, and 400 suppliers.

7. eCommerce Expo Asia 2022

Location: Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

Dates: 12 – 13 October 2022

This event promises to be a one-stop show where attendees can learn more about the latest technologies and trends in the eCommerce industry.

8. White Label World Expo Europe

Location: Frankfurt, Germany

Dates: 12 – 13 October 2022

The White Label World Expo will be held in Las Vegas, New York, London, and Frankfurt. In 2022, Frankfurt will play host to Europe’s event and will attract 8,000 visitors, 200 speakers, and 350 exhibitors. It aims to help online retailers find the hottest new white label products.

9. Shoptalk Fall Meetup

Location: Online

Dates: 18 – 20 October 2022

The Shoptalk Fall Meetup lets online stakeholders in the retail community connect in a fun and open environment. There are over 2,500 participants from Europe and the United States who take part in double opt-in meetings and interactive small-group content. There are also “Tabletalks” led by moderators that look at issues facing the retail sector.

10. Digital Customer Engagement Summit

Location: London, UK

Date: 20 October 2022

The Digital Customer Engagement Summit offers one-to-one business meetings, interactive seminars, and valuable networking opportunities, making it the ideal opportunity to nurture lasting professional relationships. It’s aimed at senior professionals in the customer services and IT/digital customer fields. In 2022, it will again be a hybrid event which means that virtual attendance options will also be available.

11. Richmond E-Commerce Forum Autumn

Location: Rimini, Italy

Dates: 23 – 25 October 2022

The Richmond E-Commerce Forum Autumn is dedicated to business matching in the eCommerce sector. The event targets eCommerce professionals in Italy to bring together supply and demand, and share new ideas, solutions, and innovations with the sector.

12. Advanced E-commerce & Retail Expo 

Location: Makuhari Messe, Japan

Dates: 26 – 28 October  2022

Advanced E-Commerce & Retail Expo is Japan’s biggest IT trade show in autumn and is aimed at professionals from the retail sector as well as manufacturers and marketers. It will feature a wide range of products that include store operation, customer service, and store connection solutions.

13. Ecommerce Warsaw Expo

Location: Warsaw, Poland

Date: 27 October  2022

The Ecommerce Warsaw Expo is described as the most important event for online sellers in Poland.

14. Internet Commerce Summit and Awards

Location: Mumbai, India

Dates: 2 – 3 November 2022

The event planned for 2022 includes case studies, networking, CXO talks, cohort sessions, and exclusive sessions to help you analyze newer technologies and innovations.

15. Customer Engagement Summit 2022

Location: London, UK

Date: 15 November 2022

The Customer Engagement Summit is described as Europe’s biggest customer engagement event.

Eurora, which offers compliance solutions for cross-border ecommerce businesses, has raised 40 million dollars (37.94 million euros) in a Series A round. The capital injection will be used to accelerate the Estonian company’s international expansion.

Estonian company Eurora uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to automatically manage cross-border VAT, compliance and customs services for customers. Its b2b platform is used by online sellers, marketplaces, logistics providers, as well as tax and customs authorities. According to the company, it serves over 200 clients worldwide.

As of July last year, the VAT rules within the EU changed. The previous 22 euros import VAT exemption ended, while regulations to create a level playing field with local European manufacturers and manufacturers worldwide came into effect. Cross-border sellers from the UK, the US and China have had to adjust to these new rules.

Eurora’s software simplifies VAT, compliance and customs for these cross-border sellers. The platform is claimed to have a 96 percent accuracy for parcels and handles 5.000 requests per second. It automatically calculates the applicable VAT and duty amounts. At the same time, it also creates electronic declarations for EU duties and taxes with an API integration.

In July 2021, Eurora raised 2.5 million euros, which allowed the company to expand the coverage of its customs compliance tools across 193 countries. Just 9 months later, the company held a Series A round led by Connected Capital. Existing investors such as Change Ventures, Equity United and founder Marko Lasik participated in the round that raised almost 38 million euros.

The software provider will use the capital injection to expand geographically into the UK, the US and the Middle East. Its current team of 150 people is expected to double by the end of this year. The company also wants to boost product development and add-on acquisitions.

B2B marketplaces are becoming part of mainstream ecommerce. Collective sales on them grew 130% year over year in 2021 to $56 billion, according to an estimate by Digital Commerce 360.

Marketplaces have been in existence for more than 20 years, but the commercial and vertical marketplace platforms that bring together groups of buyers and sellers in a digital sales channel have played only a minor role in ecommerce—until now.

As the global COVID-19 pandemic marches into its third year and continues to produce major supply chain trouble for many manufacturers, distributors, and others, more organizations are latching on to marketplaces to buy and sell goods and services.

Today, B2B marketplaces, driven by the dominating presence of Amazon Business and the proliferation of scores of marketplaces springing up to serve numerous vertical markets from healthcare and automotive to chemicals and agriculture, are part of the mainstream of ecommerce.  To say more, B2B marketplaces are red hot and getting hotter.

B2B marketplaces also are the fastest-growing digital sales channel. For 2021, Digital Commerce 360 projects that the collective sales on B2B marketplaces grew 130% and totaled $56.0 billion, compared with a projected $24.34 billion in 2020. Last year, B2B marketplaces sales grew 7.3 times faster than total B2B ecommerce sales.

Market players

Amazon Business remains the dominant force in driving B2B marketplace sales higher and is moving quickly to become a more dominant company in B2B ecommerce.

Amazon Business could generate $31 billion in gross merchandise volume this year, and accelerate to as high as $83 billion as soon as 2025. Today, Amazon Business accounts for about 1.9% of U.S. B2B ecommerce sales which could amount to 10% by 2025. Last year, the gross merchandise volume on Amazon Business represented 55.4% of all B2B marketplace sales of $56.0 billion.

But even with the big shadow cast by Amazon Business, vertical marketplaces continue to proliferate and attract serious money from Wall Street investors.

For instance, Xometry, which raised more than $300 million in an initial public offering of stock in July 2021 is ready for mammoth growth by acquiring for $300 million the B2B marketplace company Thomas, which operates Thomasnet.com with more than 1.3 million registered users. Thomas’s client base includes such organizations as manufacturers General Electric Co., Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, and Eaton Corp.; distributor W.W. Grainger Inc.; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and the U.S. departments of defense, transportation, and homeland security. Thomasnet hosts more than 500,000 commercial and industrial sellers.

Xometry and Thomas share a common mission of championing the digital transformation of the manufacturing industry, one of the largest sectors of the global economy and the foundation for innovation everywhere. Thomas will help Xometry “introduce new services, cross-sell to our combined base and expand our suite of products, particularly in fintech and digital marketing.”

Another example is Bay Supply, an industrial distributor from Farmingdale, New York, selling a wide array of fasteners to big and small companies since 1961. The company is rolling out a new marketplace on BaySupply.com to bring together buyers and sellers in rather fragmented and outdated fastener industry.

Sourcing fasteners requires an incredible amount of time and research online, and the current process just doesn’t make sense for anyone in the supply chain anymore.

The marketplace was designed and launched in conjunction with McFadyen Digital, an ecommerce and marketplace consulting firm. The marketplace was a new extension of Bay Supply’s Magento ecommerce platform. Bay Supply will collect 9% of each completed transaction on the marketplace.

The timing is right to launch a B2B marketplace and there are companies uniquely positioned to do so.