The 10 ecommerce stories for the week of 2 August 2013

Pinterest shows it’s ecommerce aspirations, Amazon does an experiment with Collections, Insights into rural China ecommerce and much more.

The week that ended on Friday can just as well be called the “week of competitors”. Across the ecommerce landscape competitors had Mexican stand offs with one another. The eBooks saga with Apple has taken a very interesting turn with the judge ordering that Apple should allow outward links to Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s online bookstores. Apple have already said that they will contest the recommendation from the judge but I wonder how Amazon has kept below the radar on this matter over the years?

Pinterest has finally shown their commerce play but price alerts and extra pin types, really? Well they have been placed on notice by Amazon. Amazon debuted Collections which looks a lot like Pinterest but no-one noticed something else. The facebook like buttons on Amazon product pages have disappeared. Increasingly, I am thinking that Amazon is placing greater emphasis on their own platforms.. I am still not convinced over Pinterest and their future.

Then in China, Alibaba revoked the usage of WeChat by their users. WeChat is a Tencent property (a very large competitor to Alibaba in China but not directly competitive in ecommerce). Increasingly, Alibaba is also becoming more restrictive on their platform which is understandable, yet I cannot wonder whether this is is a platform battle as well?

Ultimately, all of the above highlights the global battles in verticals for users. All of these businesses want users on their platforms and those same users to then purchase items or spend time on the platforms.

Before, the 10 stories that caught my attention this week:

  1. Revealed: The 17 Other Search Engines The FTC Warned Over Paid Ad Disclosures – There are increasingly issues regarding paid ad disclosures on vertical search engines. Notice which company is missing from this discussion? Google which got a general purpose warning but no one knows what the content of that warning contained.
  2. Is Amazon losing market share to Lazada in SEA? – This blog post is one that I re-read as the content regarding Amazon & Lazada is indicative of the emergence of South East Asia. The one thing that the author does not really touch on is that the data that is contained in the post does revolve on publically available data. Amazon has not officially entered SEA..
  3. Amazon and Overstock are locked in a price war to offer cheaper hardcover books – Overstock this past week tried to play the price game with Amazon. Needless to say that in a matter of hours Amazon changed their pricing and Overstock lost their supposed advantage. Why do companies try and play the price game with Amazon?
  4. Should Russia be your next e-commerce frontier? –  This is a great post on Russian ecommerce. To answer the question, prospective entrants would have to do their homework on the Russian ecommerce market. I believe Russia to be a challenging market that needs to be carefully thought about before entry, and once entered by a business in needs 100% commitment.
  5. French Online Retail Market is Third Largest in Europe – This Comscore article caught my attention as it highlights just how big Amazon is in France. Retail ecommerce which seems to be a cumulative count of multiple businesses are leading online retail in France and then 2 independant businesses are seen in that market.
  6. Is “emotional commerce” really driving sales? – A few weeks ago I asked the same question over emotional commerce which seems to be something like a self made marketing term. Aspirational commerce sounds better and makes a lot more sense.
  7. Google Product Listing Ads Posts Largest Lead In Comparison Shopping Industry Since 2009 – The paid for Google Shopping plus Product Listing ads are ensuring that Google is becoming a force in ecommerce. I have to wonder has Google planned this all along?
  8. As seen on The Grommet: Building a retail experience for the online era – The Grommet was an acquisition that Rakuten made in 2012, yet at the time no-one understood why? In hindsight this acquisition was about having a business that is different from the traditional ecommerce model (curated and limited edition like products).
  9. Rakuten Global E-commerce Expansion Weighs Down Q2 Profits – Rakuten’s quarterly results are indicative of the heavy investment they have made in the last 12 months. Does this pay off in the end for the Japanese powerhouse?
  10. Has the Rise of Online Shopping Made Traffic Worse? – This article got me thinking about the secondary effects that ecommerce has on cities. Is lockers and collection points the answer to this? I will answer that soon..

Bonus links for this week:

Onwards