MBE Worldwide acquires e-commerce platform PrestaShop

Shipping service provider MBE Worldwide announced today the full acquisition of PrestaShop, a leading e-commerce platform in Europe and Latin America, to broaden its SME-focused services.

With this deal, the two companies are merging their respective strengths, with the digital e-commerce and physical location-based platforms complementing each other’s offering within the same global commerce value chain. The aim is to provide a fully integrated, seamless customer experience to enable enterprises to realise significant growth potential.

MBE and PrestaShop both focus on SMEs as their primary strategic customer segment. Their combined force will mean significant growth potential in their core geographical strongholds and a common base of over 600,000 customers in Europe (primarily Italy, France, Spain, Germany, the UK and Poland) and over 1 million worldwide.

Leading platform

“PrestaShop and its people are a great addition to MBE. By combining “atoms and bits” we will further differentiate our unique positioning in the market, thus enabling MBE to become one of the leading global e-commerce and logistics platforms for businesses,” said Paolo Fiorelli, Chairman and CEO of MBE Worldwide.

Alexandre Eruimy, Managing Director of PrestaShop, who will continue to run the business, explained: “Joining MBE is an opportunity for PrestaShop to accelerate its growth with the support of a leading industry player that will enable us to further our position of leadership in Europe and Latin America, conquer new customers and provide a fully integrated best-in-class offering to our clients. The complementarity of both our offers will enable us to become the leading global commerce platform for business growth.”

M&A deals for geographical expansion

Italy-based MBE is a leading third-party provider of shipping (mostly express courier deliveries), fulfilment, print and marketing solutions and operates under different brands, including the well-known Mail Boxes Etc. brand (except in the US & Canada). In 2020, MBE served over 700,000 business customers worldwide through a global network of over 2.800 service centres in 53 countries with system-wide sales worth €879 million.

Earlier this year, MBE acquired Mail Boxes Etc. in the UK (MBE UK & Ireland), a Dutch company Multicopy, which offers print and marketing services through a network of 53 branches, and Pack & Send, an Australian courier and freight reseller.

DHL partnership

For its part, PrestaShop allows any merchant to utilise its e-commerce channel anywhere in the world, benefiting from a platform that is fully customisable and adaptable to each market. In 2020, more than 300,000 merchants generated over €22 billion in sales via PrestaShop’s e-commerce platform and services.

PrestaShop signed a strategic partnership with Deutsche Post DHL last month enabling its participating merchants to profit from DHL’s extensive global logistics network and e-commerce fulfillment expertise.