Bridge Community Farms has received a £15k donation from Wates Construction Ltd, one of the largest building and construction companies in the UK. Wates has also pledged a further £10k in early 2015, which will be used to cover some of the salary costs for the new Farm Manager at BCF. 

Francis Ball, director at Bridge Community Farms, said: “We are hugely grateful to Wates Construction Ltd for this kind donation. Bridge Community Farms relies on the support of local businesses and individuals and these donations will help us fulfil our goal of changing lives for the better in Cheshire.”

Nearly half of adult internet users in Poland said they banked on a mobile device.

"According to results from March 2014, this was the third-highest percentage out of the countries studied, trailing only Turkey (56%) and the Netherlands (50%) and tying with Spain (48%)."

"April 2014 study found that users in Poland were accessing mobile banking frequently: 82.7% of tablet owners reported banking via such a device at least once per week, and 84.4% of smartphone users said the same."

"Around half of those groups used a mobile device several times per week to conduct banking—the most popular frequency. Still, nearly one-quarter of respondents reported banking on a smartphone every day—the second-highest frequency for that device."

More info here.

The Spanish SMEs are not eager to adopt ecommerce platforms, since 2 in 10 companies have a website via which they sell their products or services online.

"9 in 10 SMEs have an online presence through corporate websites, whereas 95% of them admit the importance of being found on search engines and 80% are aware of the importance of having a profile on social networks."

"1 in 3 business players have no strategy or any SEO-based knowledge."

More info here.

According to the new Custora report, mobile e-commerce hits all time high.

1. US mobile e-commerce is a $40 billion market, poised to hit $50 billion in sales in 2014.

"In the past four years, the mobile e-commerce market grew 19-fold: From $2.2 billion in 2010 to $42.8 billion in 2013. This represents 1875% growth over these four years, and 111% 4-year CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate)."

Source Custora.

2. More than a third of visits to online stores now come from mobile devices (phones and tablets). 

"By the end of Q1 2014, 36.9% of visits to online stores came from mobile devices. That’s up from 3.4% at the beginning of 2010."

Source Custora.

3. Apple dominates e-commerce. For now.

Source Custora.

4. Email Marketing drives mobile purchases – social media doesn’t.

"Customers responding to email marketing and shoppers going directly to e-commerce sites (including app traffic) accounted for the highest share of purchases on phones. Email marketing generated 26.7% of sales on mobile phones, compared to only 20.9% on desktop, and 23.1% on tablet. Social media accounted for only 0.6% of sales on phones and 0.2% on tablets."

Source Custora.

More info here.

Without a doubt, e-commerce in Morocco is experiencing a peak of interest.

"The country counts more than 6.9 million internet subscribers, with average quarterly increases of 10.6%, and yearly increases of 57.3%. By the end of March 2014, the internet penetration rate had stabilized at 19.45%, meaning that 16 million Moroccans – around one in five – had internet access. Interestingly mobile internet exceeded DSL in terms of sheer number of registrations; mobile internet now represents 86% of the market share."

"The amount of purchases and payment online has increased from $3.8 million USD in 2008 to $90 million USD in 2012, with more than 1.25 million transactions on the platform alone. 9.5 million credit cards were in circulation in 2013, and more than 171 million online bill pay transactions were undertaken between January and September 2013, totaling $17.7 billion USD."

"The growth of Moroccan e-commerce could be even faster if its availability and the demand for it hadn’t been slowed by many factors. The administrative procedures needed to implement an online e-payment platform are too complicated and expensive for micro-enterprises and craft and agricultural cooperatives to go online. These procedures need to be simplified and the costs must be lessened. Retailers must also make the effort to translate their websites into Arabic, a untapped high-potential sector, and focus more on mobile."

More info here.