Six European consumers' associations conclude that two-thirds of products bought on non-EU online marketplaces fail safety tests. The investigated marketplaces in this extensive research are AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, LightInTheBox and Wish. For more than a year, European consumers' associations from Belgium (Test Aankoop), Denmark (Forbrugerrådet Tænk), Germany (Stiftung
German e-commerce market 2019: €76.2 billion
The German e-commerce market had a total value of €76.2 billion in 2019. The market grew by 11.6% compared to the situation in 2018. Mainly, the growth of the German online retail industry is thanks to online shoppers who have increased their online spendings. Every third consumer now orders several times a week. Mobile devices are an accelerator of this growth as one in three
Amazon opens pop-up store on China’s Pinduoduo until the end of 2019
Amazon.com on Monday said it will open a pop-up store on Chinese e-commerce platform Pinduoduo. This store will run until the end of December and carry a selection of about 1,000 products from overseas. The move, initially reported by Reuters on Sunday, points to how Amazon's China-strategy is evolving. Earlier this year, it already decided to stop operating a marketplace
EU request ending of German VAT Certificate
On October 14th, the European Commission (EC) sent a formal notice to Germany, to withdraw its recently installed German VAT certificate requirement for EU and non-EU sellers on marketplaces. Via an application, the paper document is obtained to the various German tax offices. The certificate verifies a sellers German VAT registration and the fact they are up-to-date on
German marketplaces: dealers, get a VAT certificate
Starting next week on October 1st, European based online retailers that sell to German consumers must provide any marketplaces they are active on with a German VAT certificate. They can get this certificate from the German tax office (Finanzamt). Last week, we reported about the effects of the new German regulations for marketplaces like Amazon. The German VAT certificates