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COMPETITION

Swedes set for virtual gift card competition

The Swedish gift-card application “Wrapp” continues to expand around the world, and has launched a competition for Swedish users to win a trip to London.

Swedes set for virtual gift card competition

The company is expanding into the Netherlands, France, Germany, Taiwan, Brazil and Turkey, and already exists in Sweden, Norway, the UK, and most recently the US.

Now, the company is running a competition aimed at the 170,000 Swedish Wrapp users. The competition, “To London with Love”, is based on the ties between Sweden and the UK, and encourages Swedes to send Wrapp gift cards to loved ones in Britain.

Winners of the competition can snag a trip to London to visit friends or family, complete with a gift card for a theatre or sporting event. The company notes that the ties between London and Sweden are strong in a statement, and aim to have Swedes embracing their friends and families virtually, which is only possibly through their app.

“Some say London is home to the fourth-largest urban Swedish population after Uppsala. At the same time, nearly 600,000 Brits visit Sweden every year,” wrote Wrapp in a statement.

Wrapp, founded by Swedish entrepreneur Hjalmar Winbladh, was created in September last year and has continued to soar since its inception. Before the launch in the US this month, Wrapp attracted the backing of two online giants, Skype’s Niklas Zennström and LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman.

The idea functions primarily through Facebook, and allows gift-buyers to purchase vouchers for popular stores through their smartphone.

The competition runs between the 4th and the 25th of May.

Oliver Gee

Follow Oliver on Twitter here

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COMPETITION

Amazon under investigation by Italy’s competition watchdog

Italy's competition authority said on Tuesday it had opened an investigation into Amazon for possible abuse of its dominant position in online commerce and logistics.

Amazon under investigation by Italy's competition watchdog
Did Amazon unfairly profit from its market dominance in Italy? Photo: Philippe Huguen/AFP

The authority said it suspected that the retail giant had been giving preferential exposure to third-party vendors on its platform only if they subscribed to Amazon's logistics service.

READ ALSO: Amazon promises to bring 1,700 new jobs to Italy

“These practices would have allowed Amazon to profit unfairly from its dominant position” in online commerce platforms “in order to significantly curtail competition” on storage and dispatch markets, said the Italian competition authority, Antitrust. These practices would have in the end harmed consumers, it added.

The investigation is likely to last a year, said Antitrust. The authority's agents inspected various Amazon sites on Tuesday, accompanied by members of the financial crime unit.

The Italian case follows probes by authorities in Japan, France, Austria and the EU Commission into practices by Amazon and other tech giants like Google, Apple and Facebook.

In June 2017, the EU Commission hit Google with a fine of €2.42 billion for abuse of its dominant market position, the first such sanction for the company in Europe. 

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