|
|
B2C (Business to customer) news
Sports merchandise that is sold as memorabilia continues to challenge businesses. Fanatics mistakenly marked an item as game worn vs game issued. This will continue to be an issue for the online retailer as athletes on social media maintain their version of the story. The Washington Post
The Amazon Treasure Truck is hitting the streets of Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston. The quirky vehicle, which has been compared to an ice cream truck for grown ups, offers one discounted item at a time, selling everything from steaks to GoPros. Customers can get notifications via the Amazon app when the truck is going to be nearby. GeekWire
Amazon Prime has become a cornerstone for future development of services and businesses for Amazon. A fascinating look at Prime. Early Moves
How did The Good Guys (Australian based) improve their ecommerce sales? The whitegoods and appliance retail market is a fiercely competitive marketplace and ripe for digital disruption. Which is why The Good Guys decided to up its ecommerce game in order to give its customer experience a significant boost. CMO Australia
How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food. Now Tasty has ambitions to expand beyond overhead food clips. This week, it will begin selling a physical product called the Tasty One Top, an app-connected induction cook top that can perform a wide range of cooking tasks, from searing to simmering to sous-vide. The New York Times, AdWeek
With Kenmore Deal Amazon Is A Winner. For Sears, Not So Much. While online sales of major appliances are currently comparatively small, being able to offer a leading brand on a semi-exclusive basis gives Amazon a jump start in a large category where they have virtually no presence. On the other hand, for Sears, it smacks of desperation. Medium
|
|
D2C (Direct To Customer) news
Amazon continues to add Prime-only products that are aimed at the direct to customer space. This past week "The Fix" arrived and is focused on shoes and handbags. Both are very popular purchases and heavily competitive verticals inside direct to customer brands. TechCrunch, RetailDive
Direct to customer brands are ensuring that old established brands are fighting for relevance and share of customer wallets. The millenials are interested in brands that are selling in spaces that they operate it (on mobile, inside relevant content). The Robin Report
|
|
Marketplace news
Amazon reported earnings this past week and they missed earnings per share. I believe that Amazon has gone back to investment mode and suspect that Q3 will be similar. The need for faster shipping, battling many competitors in foreign countries and doing $100 million experiments lead to this. GeekWire, Bloomberg, The Seattle Times
Since February Walmart has been slowly inviting sellers from China, UK and Canada which goes against the "Made in USA" programme. This will become a head ache for Walmart as their marketplace scales. BNN Canada, Reuters
Alibaba has shown interest in investing in Tokopedia. A few reasons why this interesting - this could preclude JD.com investment. Secondly, this seems to indicate that Alibaba has genuine appetite to dominate investment and ecommerce in South East Asia. Bloomberg
JD.com and Walmart are getting deeper interweaved in Chinese ecommerce. Companies to further integrate platforms, supply chains, and customer resources, and launch the first annual JD-Walmart August 8th shopping festival. JD Investor Relations
PayPal and eBay are seemingly on the road to a clash as PayPal wants to play a bigger role in cross border ecommerce. Tech In Asia
Noon.com announces their new CEO. I believe that Namshi will be totally acquired by Noon in the next 18 months and that they will struggle to compete with Amazon / Souq.com in the Middle East. Arabian Business
The Flipkart acquisition of Snapdeal seems to be closer to completion. Depending on media sources it does seem that SoftBank is pressuring earlier investors to sell otherwise they will just invest into Flipkart independently. TechCrunch, The Economic Times
Amazon Eyes Offline Sales Of Smartphones in India. Four years after entering India and doubling down on its investment to expand its online business in the country, Amazon is exploring a new territory: offline space. NDTV
eBay is launching visual search tools to aid csutomers finding products. As a late entrant into visual search eBay is playing catch up to a variety of services (Google, Amazon, Pinterest etc) yet they believe that they are at an advantage. TechCrunch
JD.com is using the formation of their own logistics services as a tool to remove other logistics providers. The battle between Alibaba and JD.com continues to escalate, TianTian is owned by Suning (who has investment from Alibaba). South China Morning Post, Caixin Global
Alongside its advertising business, Amazon seems to be gaining huge momentum in the B2B space. Does anything or any competing marketplace for B2B sales have a chance? Bloomberg Gladfly, Applico
The CEO of Birkenstock has had a busy week, He has reminded third party sellers that they cannot sell Birkenstock product to Amazon. PYMNTS, The Washington Post
|
|
Fashion ecommerce news
Matchesfashion is looking towards a sale and Private Equity seems to be their preferred option. I find this hardly surprising as they are 30 years old, have seemingly fallen behind upstarts such as Farfetch. Business of Fashion
The online consignment space is increasingly becoming more competitive as thredUp adds a Luxe to their offering. It is clear to me that TheRealReal and Vestiaire Collective are leading in this vertical and thus thredUp is trying to become more horizontal in adding luxury items to their service. TechCrunch
Stitch Fix has confidentially filed to go public. Whilst this is the beginning of the road to becoming a listed business, Stitch Fix will be a very interesting market test. Part Fashion, part tech company that has grown a subscription business to large revenue without taking lots of investment. TechCrunch
A fascinating look at Grailed and how they are not dealing with sellers who are selling counterfeit goods. A case study that should be read by the team at Grailed. Medium
|
|
Mobile commerce
Amazon has entered Singapore via its Prime Now service. Singapore ecommerce is about to have its Amazon moment as Prime is yet to launch in the market but they have struggled to keep the service working. Tech in Asia
Why Beer & Wine Apps Are Thriving? This is one of the better explanations of the multi-sided effects that wine & beer apps have both from a technology stand point (data, image recognition) and business (marketplaces, vertical specific retail). Localytics
China's largest provider of on-demand services Meituan-Dianping, said it planned to invest heavily in offline retail services in a strategy that will pitch it directly against China's top e-commerce firms. Reuters
Drizly, has unveiled their Drizly Data Distillery which provides some fascinating insights on what happens inside Drizly. Very interesting concept from a market leader. BusinessWire
|
|
Stats and other interesting news
Well, Amazon has unveiled "The Hub", a parcel delivery locker system for apartment complexes. Yet another sign of the race between Walmart and Amazon as Walmart partnered with Latch a week ago. TechCrunch
Amazon Ads Ineffective, Say 40% Of SMBs. Hardly surprising as both Amazon and customers are learning about this service. MediaPost
|
|
Thoughts on the news from this past week
Jack Ma, the Founder of Alibaba toured Africa this past week. He was part of a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development delegation that visited Kenya and Rwanda. Ma continues to show his business acumen by providing investment into a new fund for entrepreneurs. I think that by the time that the ecommerce industry has realized what Ma has been doing it will be too late. Ma has been preaching job creation to markets that require employment. In doing so he ensured that he fulfills the mission for his company, finding products that can be sold to Alibaba customers.
This past week Amazon entered Singapore via their on demand mobile app, Prime Now. Amazon has used this country as its market entry into South East Asia. Singapore is not large and thus quicker market entry has been possible. Amazon has used 2 Singapore born staff to go run this new market. By appearing in Appstores instead of via a website Amazon has shown their secretive nature but also how they are going to go into new markets in Asia. This past week should provide more than enough evidence of the future battle that is going to appear more and more, Alibaba vs Amazon. Both have significant capital and desire to enlarge their businesses.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|