UPS Acquires European E-Commerce Provider

UPS recently acquired Kiala, a Brussels-based provider of goods bought on the Internet, as the parcel giant attempts to tap growing e-commerce in Europe.

Kiala delivers packages to delivery points where consumers can pick them up at their leisure, instead of having to be at home or the office to receive them. The company, founded in 2011, operates in Belgium, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, France and Spain.

The company serves more than 300 companies, including H&M, Esprit, and Yves Rocher, and handles up to 145,000 parcels daily, according to Kiala's Web site. The terms of the sale were not disclosed.

E-commerce has yet to take off in Europe as it has in the U.S., with European Internet retail sales accounting for 3.4 percent of total sales. E-commerce accounts for roughly 4.6 percent of all U.S. retail sales, according to The Economist.

But the European Commission’s push to create a “digital single market” could help the agency reach its goal of doubling the share of e-commerce sales to 6.8 percent by 2015.

-- Contact Mark Szakonyi at mszakonyi@joc.com. Follow him on Twitter @Szakonyi_JOC