Amazon to reach $100 billion in 2014?, Car buying revolutionized, Price Machine Offers Unbiased Shopping Insight, E-retailers join the marketplace race and much more.

It is the first week of 2014 in the record books, the week contained some references to issues experienced over the festive season by Amazon etc but in terms of news it was a slow week. Call it the calm before the storm (the year) or just that most businesses were either closed or running skeleton staff.

I think the coming year is going to contain a theme that will most probably be getting a lot of attention by the big ecommerce businesses, logistics. If Amazon and eBay really want to disrupt retail as they claim then they will need to invest into logistics. Call me crazy, but I think there is a lot more behind Amazon’s partnership with USPS than what people are talking about.. For Amazon to grow and become completely dominant in the US they will need to own the last mile in terms of delivery. UPS, I suspect will be doing a lot more planning for festive 2014 than that was seen in last few weeks of 2013.

I believe strongly that the web is making certain parts of retail more efficient. Why? The lack of intermediaries for customers to deal with merchants / retailers. Look at what Tesla has done with car sales and all the backlash that they received for selling direct to the customer instead of via a showroom. Google has also been testing car sales in San Francisco by partnering with local dealerships. Is this a part of retail that is also being disrupted? I tend to think so.

The stories that caught my attention for the week ending 5 January 2014:

1. China’s e-commerce goes mobile in 2014 – “The new growth point of China e-commerce is transitioning quickly to China’s rural and lower-tier regions, given that online shopping in wealthier and more developed coastal China is already well established. Mobile, as a result, is rising as a vital channel to connect e-commerce stores and online merchants to their end consumers in China’s new frontier.” China will be a market to keep an eye on regarding mobile commerce.
2. The drive-thru meets the web for groceries – France-based Chronodrive enables shoppers to order and pay for groceries online and pick them up at their convenience and without paying a delivery fee. The company opened its first location in 2004 and now has 67 warehouses throughout the country. I was not aware of Chronodrive prior to this article and can see this execution across the globe but most importantly the impact of mobile on this business is interesting.
3. Holiday party dress central: How we started Rent the Runway – It harnesses the shareable economy and takes advantage of the aspirations to luxury that many young women harbor today. Hyman and Fleiss soon approached people at fashion labels, but many were initially hesitant to let Rent the Runway buy and rent out their products. I think Rent the Runway is an interesting business case. Most of all – this capitalises on aspiration effect of luxury retail that only 5% of the population can afford.
4. Jeff Katz’s Price Machine Offers Unbiased Shopping Insight For The Budget Shopper – Price Machine is currently focused on the U.S., but will start to expand soon into countries where we already have experience and other web properties in Germany, Japan and Brazil.  We are also looking to grow into India,” Katz continues. Katz is a thought leader inside comparison shopping with lots of experience. I must admit Price Machine still feels like it is aimed at a different part of ecommerce – those who are very price sensitive.
5. E-retailers join the marketplace race – Take Staples. The chain appears well prepared for the marketplace race and would seem to have the motivation of a merchant worrying about a shifting customer base and declining demand for its core products. Staples joining the marketplace race for me is a clear sign that they are losing their users to the big 3 eretailers in the US (Amazon, eBay and Walmart) and I must admit that I still dont see the need for brand dilution that a marketplace brings to Staples.
6. Amazon’s PR genius – Ben Evans writes a great article about the way in which Amazon controls its story in the press. Very little numbers are ever given to the world about Kindle, Amazon Prime yet they proudly announce the location of new DC’s. I have great respect for Amazon and can honestly say that the secrecy is part of the majestic nature of the behemoth.
7. Groupon completes US$260M acquisition of LivingSocial’s TicketMonster – Groupon must be one of the most resilient businesses ever. LivingSocial is clearly in trouble and it is clearly going through changes to make the business survive. The irony is that Groupon and LivingSocial had a bidding war to acquire TicketMonster and in the end Groupon got it..
8. Can WhatsNew make Quidsi’s magic work in South East Asia? – WhatsNew, a Thailand-based startup, has adopted Quidsi’s cross marketing business model by interlinking its three websites. Will it work in SEA? Quidsi is something of an enigma and WhatsNew has a lot of work to do to even be considered in the same conversation with Quidsi.
9. Will mobile-first auction apps curb eBay’s prowess? – “So I would say that eBay is ahead of the competition in this regard. However, what eBay is certainly falling behind on, is creating a shopping experience for these new and used goods that matches the end user demographics. eBay is currently leading in terms of size but will niche specific apps take users away from them?
10. Office supplies platform Stationery.ae launches in Dubai to beat brick-and-mortar stores – The online retailer aims to serve what its founders say is a market worth a total of 1.6 billion AED; Stationery.ae hopes to capture at least 10% of the local market, which is comprised of 800,000 school children, 100,000 university students, and 240,000 small businesses in the country, says cofounder and CEO Walied Albasheer. Interesting vertical but one has to question if Stationary.ae will be able to grow against behemoths like Souq etc..

Bonus Links:

• Amazon Is “Reviewing The Performance” Of Their Partners – Doesn’t seem like they could afford to buy either UPS (market cap near $100B) or FedEx (market cap near $50B), but maybe that’s what AmazonFresh is all about, long term. Yes, MG you can see the plan with AmazonFresh..
• Life After Amazon – “It has been nearly two years since the Amazon decision and I can proudly report that our company is still alive, well, and prospering. Our direct-selling division has recorded seven consecutive months of year-over-year growth, and new sales force hires are up 25% over last year as well.” Fascinating read on a topic that is a hot potato.