Electric Thoughts in a Digital Era | A blog on eCommerce, Social Commerce, Marketplaces & Business

How big is Amazon.com?

Seattle is home of the silent giant called Amazon.com. When I was in the US in October, I visited Seattle and tried to find the silent giant. The offices are not marked but it is seen on GPS maps, one would think that this company would be proud of their heritage. Amazon.com operates in a different manner..

Amazon.com is the creation of someone whom I would love to talk to. Jeff Bezos is in a class by himself and there are maybe 3 people in commerce that can be seen in same light as him. Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart whom built a giant that is all across the globe.

In the developing ecommerce world there are 2 founders of companies whom I believe that can hold their own against Bezos. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba has built a business that will dominate a developing world economy. Is China no longer an option for foreign ecommerce investors? I tend to think so.

Secondly, in Latin America is a founder whom I have been privileged to meet in person. Romero Rodrigues is one of the founders of Buscape and one of the most thoughtful folks I have met in ecommerce. What makes these individuals different? Long term focus, they were all founders of the business and are now leading the businesses they created. The thing that makes them the leaders, is the ability to be 5 steps of the market. Skating to where the puck is going to be, comes to mind.

The 10 e-commerce stories for the week ending 14 December 2012

Rocket Internet raises more money for fashion, Amazon goes social and eBay is becoming a disruptor.

We have passed the middle of the month and the year is almost in the history books. I guess, we are pretty close to cut off dates for shipping for the festive season. I have been thinking about 2013 and have a few thoughts on where ecommerce is going. I see a few themes: Personalisation, loyalty, analytics and education but the big challenge is going to be the global economic climate, but it deserves a seperate post.

The past week has seen news that Rocket Internet has raised more money for certain of their fashion businesses. Needless to say, I think that fashion ecommerce has been one of the themes for the past year but I have to wonder what all the funding is to be used for? Scaling the businesses? Marketing?

The major story of this week for me has to be the resurgence of eBay. After spending time in the US in October 2012, it became clear to me that eBay has become a disruptor. When you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, a climate is generated for innovation..

Apple – the pretender to Amazon’s reign?

This is the first in a series of posts regarding Amazon’s competitors.

Game on between Cupertino and Seattle:
It is clear to me that Apple is the company at the moment that can topple Amazon. It won’t be overnight but rather the process will take some time and will need Amazon to drop the ball (which at the moment I am not seeing any time soon).

Apple in it’s current form can take Amazon head on. When Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded the company, the main purpose was to create personal computers. The rest is history and is outside the bounds of this post. The point is Apple has software and hardware creation in it’s DNA.

Apple has a much larger global footprint in comparison to that of Amazon and in my mind it makes more revenue based on providing opportunity to users to spend money on its App Store and iTunes. One thing that must not be forgotten is that Apple has 400 million credit cards saved by users on their iTunes platform. It may not be one click buying but the process is user friendly.

In terms of content, Apple can match and exceed the amount of content that Amazon has. The content I refer to is ebooks, music and apps which all lead to income for the Cupertino company. Steve Jobs was the only competitive CEO that realized that eBooks was a genius move by Bezos. However he took the potential negative of not being first to market and turned it to a positive by actively trying to assist publishers in fighting versus Amazon. In the end it lead to legal proceedings and a hefty fine for Apple (which they are contesting) but Apple will continue in the content game. Not one direct competitor took the Amazon bull by the horns as Apple did.

The 10 e-commerce stories for the week ending 30 November 2012

Shoprite Checkers claims a Africa first, Nike sells Cole Haan, Bezos speaks and Google Shopping gets attacked by Microsoft

December 2012 is here and this past week (where did November go?) has been a busy one for ecommerce. Black Friday and Cyber Monday is now in the record books and by all indications, the winner was mobile commerce. Apple has created a position of strength with regards to commerce on devices. The iPad seems to be the device driving a lot of traffic and sales to retailers and the iPhone is just a bit behind the iPad in terms of ecommerce value. I am convinced that Jobs knew in advance that his devices would become important for certain industries. Ask yourself one question, why does BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung and Android get a mention here? .. I will answer the question in the coming weeks.. but it boils down to execution.

I get proud when I read about South African commerce businesses that innovate. Our market may not be as big in size as the US or the UK but there are a few businesses that get it. The Shoprite group ( a large retail operation) is a business that has been building an empire and they get it. Yes, it is the only South African retailer that ensured that they created a defensible position before Walmart arrived. Acquisitions and investment has ensured that they stay a dominant player in retail in South Africa. They announced a mobile coupon app that is going to make a lot of their customers happy and scare their opposition. See, retailers a business that leverage technology to create a win for themselves and their customers…

The 10 e-commerce stories for the week ending 23 November 2012

Black Friday stories, Tiger Direct consolidates, A virtual measuring tape, E-commerce industry insights from Turkey, India, South Africa and Brazil.

What a week, that is the first thing that I can think of when reflecting about the last 5 working days. Today is Black Friday in the United States and my inbox looks in pretty bad shape, the intensity of this years marketing by eretailers feels to have gone up a notch. Black Friday made in appearance in South Africa as eretailers try to get on the bandwagon (Expect a post on this topic in the coming days) of a phenomenal day for retail in the US.

Amazon this week did something I was expecting. It threw down the gauntlet to Google with a very clever concept called Amazon pages. It is a Pinterest like execution designed to draw more content around Amazon’s rubik’s cube. Bezos in my opinion never does anything for free and there is always a strategy around everything done by Amazon.com. The pages concept to me feels like a challenge to Google as this product will have content that is not found in the Google index. This topic is going to be one that is to be revisited as Amazon is in a mode I have never seen before. Bezos has been calculated and slowly making moves in publishing, advertising and technology; the difference is that this is being managed by Amazon with how much is shown to the world controlled by them.

E-commerce in developing nations is pretty close to home for me. I live in a developing economy, have it as my occupation and it is something I am pretty interested in. The next phase of ecommerce in my mind is a shift towards new battle grounds which will see the eBays, Amazons of the developed ecommerce markets going into regions where a Buscape, MercadoLibre, Alibaba, Flipkart, Souq, Trendyol or Ozon is found. In my mind platforms, resources and execution is going to be what determines who survives..