A blog on eCommerce, Social Commerce, Comparative Shopping Engines & Business

By Hendrik Laubscher

Search Results for: "alibaba"

UPS fails to deliver, Jingdong has 16 billion reasons to celebrate 2013 and the hidden side of ecommerce returns – eCommerce stories of the week

UPS fails to deliver, Jingdong has 16 billion reasons to celebrate 2013, the hidden side of ecommerce returns, Alipay flexes its financial muscles, Line partners with Rakuten’s Tarad.com and much more

The festive season is over and one company got badly burnt by the bad weather and lateness of orders – UPS. UPS has been getting quite a bit of press over their inability to deliver all Christmas packages by Christmas day. A few things need to be kept in mind – global economics ensured that customers shopped until the last minute for Christmas in the hope of better deals. Amazon gained a million customers for their Prime membership which I am guessing leads to 20 million customers paying for expedited shopping. I cant believe that UPS did not plan for this – in actual fact I think the last minute shopping lead to a surge in packages that nobody took into consideration.

UPS ships 40% of Amazon’s deliveries annually but I wonder whether this issue will lead to a strained relationship in 2014? The one company that gained from UPS’s misfortune – Target.

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The Eleven Things To Watch – 11.11 Global Shopping Festival

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), China’s economy is the only country with a positive GDP in 2020. Economic growth in 2020 is rare as economies are under pressure due to job losses, market contraction, and secondary effects from COVID-19. If you work in commerce, we assume that disposable income is available in all markets we operate in. 

The coming Wednesday is one of my favorite macroeconomic barometers, the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival. It started as Singles Day, and every year since 2008, it showcases the difference between Chinese e-commerce and the world.

Source: Alizila
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Amazon Prime increases price, Tencent invests into JD.com – eCommerce stories of the week

Aramex streamlines Middle East deliveries with launch of My Address, Zulily to spend heavily to fill mid-level manager gap, sparked by insane growth rate, Alibaba resorts to mobile app platform to keep afloat, eBay M&A History and Trends, Central European ecommerce to grow to €93.3bn, Amazon raises the cost of Prime by $20, A pivotal moment in Chinese Internet history as Tencent-JD Tie-Up Takes Aim at Alibaba and much more

The last 2 weeks have been full of news and in most cases the news will have industry impact for a considerable amount of time. Amazon increasing the price of Prime is not unexpected as I believe Amazon has had no choice but to increase the price of the worlds best loyalty programme. The reality is that there is no other service for users to go to but in most cases the value exceeds the costs of Prime.

The biggest news without a doubt over the last 2 weeks is the investment of Tencent into JD.com. I see it as a defensive move on the part of Tencent prior to Alibaba going public. Alibaba is rumoured to be raising $15B and then will be in a position to invest aggressively into local and international businesses. If Tencent did not invest into JD.com then they were in a position to get seriously beaten in commerce in China and in Asia.

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Amazon launches Kindle unlimited, eBay has a negative quarter – eCommerce stories of the week

Last week was dominated by 2 stories – eBay posting disappointing results and Amazon unveiling a “all you can read” Kindle package. The eBay news is not surprising – Google hit the company with a search penalty based on low quality content and also eBay is still battling with the after effects of being hacked. Those two elements by themselves will harm any Internet business – together they will harm a large business for a few quarters. The bad results could not come at a worse time for eBay. They have potential competition entering a part of the business (11 Main)  and am also facing less than desired results on their eBay Now business.

Amazon seems to be moving at a faster rate than normal with regards to the ecommerce business. The Kindle unlimited service seems to me to be an unAmazon product. The selection at launch is poor (not one of the big 5 publishers has books that you can read) and seemingly this product went to public release inside 7 days. I am still trying to understand why Amazon would want to do this? Is it a reaction to Oyster? Is it to force the big 5 publishers to provide them with ebooks? or is this primarily to drive more revenue to the Amazon published ebooks?

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Why Amazon Prime Now Is Another Trojan Horse

Amazon has entered Singapore in a new fashion that should put new countries on alerts. As I wrote in my newsletter last night that this is potentially a very big future indicator. By using Prime Now Amazon is leveraging local assets (local logistics, staff) to enter Singapore.

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.

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Why did eBay repatriate $9 billion?

I have been thinking about eBay over the last 6 weeks. The primary reason for it is “why did eBay repratriate $6 billion?” but also other news such as – David Marcus leaving Paypal into a newly created role at facebook, eBay being hacked and not saying much about it and the continued focus on Russian ecommerce. The company also announced moves into Latin America and an acquisition (AppTek) which is suppose to aid it in moving into new regions. The point is that eBay has been in the news for a variety of reasons and seems to be going a hundred miles a hour in a hundred directions.

PayPal – the “unifying element of commerce”
I am firm of the belief that eBay should have spun PayPal off. Why? Payments is a hot industry which is seeing an enormous amount of innovation. Tell me – where does PayPal fit into that? Close to the end of the line for payments businesses? I thought so.

I read the excellent piece about the PayPal mafia that was in the  TechRepublic and I could not help but wonder why eBay could not keep any of the founding team to stay at the business. Would PayPal have been spun off by now?

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eBay invests into Snapdeal, Google ups the importance of commerce and Rakuten has big plans for Europe – eCommerce stories of the week

eBay invests into Snapdeal, Lazada’s big bet on Southeast Asia, How online shopping is helping Nigeria fix its Internet reputation, Tencent to invest in JD.com?, Copycat Business Model Generates Genuine Global Success for Start-Up Incubator, Google ups the importance of commerce, Rakuten has big plans for Europe and much more.

There are 2 stories that has dominated the ecommerce landscape in the last week and they both have eBay in them. eBay lead a massive round of funding for Snapdeal and pretty much told the world that they will be acquiring Snapdeal in the coming months / years and Carl Icahn has been pressing the eBay board for a split with Paypal. The Icahn story has become something akin to a mud wrestling battle between the 2 parties and I think it is pretty poor form for this to be playing out in the public domain. Sure, as an investor in a public company  it is important to hold the management and directors accountable for their actions but this mudslinging is not doing any party any favors.

The talent exodus continues at fab.com. I wonder how many of the staff in hindsight would have taken employment from fab.com if they knew the rocky road that they would be on down the line? It is interesting to note that the only senior management staff member that is around is the CEO Jason Goldberg.

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The 10 e-commerce stories for the week ending 28 December 2012

Logistics is now a battleground, Apple and Google fighting over mobile, Amazon says a lot but it has no meaning and news from China, India and Malaysia.

As far as I am concerned 2012 is now in the record books. One working day left until 2013 and all the challenges it brings with it. Let me say this, I am looking forward to 2013 as I think we are in a bumper year of news. I am expecting a tough financial climate from April but in terms of ecommerce I think 2013 is a big year. Do Alibaba IPO? Is Groupon still around in 12 months time and does Rocket Internet have a plan for continued cloning or disruption (I think so, their businesses have raised big capital..).

If I look back over my posts in the last 12 months (yes, readers I know the content was not flowing the entire year), a few things stand out for me:

  1. Amazon is a freight train that is going into territories that makes a wide range of competitors concerned. I am honest, I think Google and Amazon is going to headline 2013. Bezos wont relent until his creation owns the retail online space. No one is standing between him and the end goal.
  2. eBay is standing at the door and the more I think about what they are doing, the more I think they have potential to be a story for 2013. Their mobile business is going into territories that not many have gone to.
  3. Developing markets are now where the innovation happens. I spent a few weeks outside South Africa that made me realise that there is businesses across the globe pushing boundaries. I cant go into specifics but all I can say, is that ecommerce is now global.
  4. 2012 was the year in which logistics finally made it into the strategy meetings. Yes, I know logistics is only spoken about when things go bad but this past year, it became a battleground for entrepreneurs, retailers and corporates. Investment is going to determine survivors and speedy delivery will become like search on ecommerce business. Same day delivery is going to be expected by default.
  5. Social commerce ended up being zilch. I got sucked into this and I must say social with commerce is either a pipe dream or is not being executed at the moment. ROI for facebook ads for ecommerce businesses most probably raises eyebrows at finance and nothing more. Vanity metrics is becoming commonplace in meetings. Building businesses on another non-owned platform is never a good thing.
  6. The ecommerce business that made 2012 for me is fab.com. I really think that they potentially can be a business to outgrow the pack in 2013. Oh and they get mobile commerce. Starbucks almost got this “award”.
  7. Readers there is a disruptor operating below the radar.. it is called Kickstarter. B2C just got turned upside down and in time I think the concept could be even more fine tuned.
  8. I have a challenge for 2013 and that is to try and spend more time with startups. I met 3 this year and by all accounts, I think they will have a good 2013. There is one in Seattle, that I think will be a disruptor in 2013.
  9. Mobile is and will continue to be the light at the end of the tunnel for ecommerce businesses. There is still lots of thinking to be done about mobile commerce.

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Amazon misunderstood, Fab buying and changing, China ecommerce grows – Ecommerce stories of the week

Amazon Misunderstood?, fab buys assets and announces a massive change, Chinese ecommerce continues to show no sign of slowing down and much more

Is Amazon misunderstood? Eugene Wei wrote a very insightful post on his previous employer. I understand what he says in terms of Amazon’s goals being out in the open but my question is what makes Amazon different? Customer centric is great, long term thinking is Bezos’s way of speaking to WallStreet but name me one other business that is so overvalued like Amazon? Take away Bezos and the Amazon.com name and I am willing to say that investors would call for the CEO’s head and investors will not be keen on investing. I am going to tackle the topic in the coming weeks as it is has been on my mind.

Fab.com continues to acquire assets and make radical changes. Bradford Shelhammer becoming an advisor is symptomatic of a company that needs a long look at itself. I initially liked the fab.com concept as I believe flash sales is not going to disappear from the ecommerce vertical model chart. Why? You are providing an win for both the brand can customer. Why can businesses like Vente-Privee, One Kings Lane and Markafoni continue to be successful? Simple, leadership and long term belief in the model. I am beginning to think Jason Goldberg is maybe on the similar road to what Andrew Mason was a year ago..

China and Chinese ecommerce has also been on my mind.  I believe that the ecommerce world is not giving Alibaba enough respect and as soon as they IPO the global ecommerce landscape is going to change. Consider the following hypothetical situation – Alibaba is valued at $150 billion dollars and have $15 billion dollars in the war chest to disrupt markets? Chinese Internet companies will always be black swans as they have scale not seen anywhere in the world. Suddenly – the whole ecosystem changes as top talent will be going to these companies, they will be able to acquire their way into markets and as they have billions in the bank they can crush companies. I have spent the last 6 months pondering about global ecommerce – spoken to a variety of thoughtleaders and have realised Chinese companies are about to start aggressively moving into markets. Alibaba and Tencent have already started the process and that should leave many of us to ponder our businesses.

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The death of pure-ecommerce and the birth of commerce

Despite the cascade of store closings, liquidations and bankruptcies, there are strong indications that pure-ecommerce, not stores, may be the endangered model. 13D Research This was an article I highlighted in my weekly ecommerce newsletter and this quote from 13D Research has been sticking in my mind. We are in a new phase of commerce in which a combined online and offline strategy will determine who are market leaders. I don’t believe this as being the moment for omnichannel (I despise the word as it is a buzzy concept that could mean a thousand things) but rather the first time in history that commerce is an experience on and offline.

The dot.com thinking

Retail has been dead since 1999 according to startup founders and ecommerce investors. Every purchase should have gone through ecommerce and physical retail should have not existed according to these subjective individuals. The simple truth for me is that we are beginning to see the creation of integrated commerce. Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba and JD.com are investing in retail locations as well as their online efforts to grow market share and leave their competitors extended financially and at their mercy.

Retail is ultimately at a tipping point and their is no turning back. If you are a pure play ecommerce business your customers are going to walk into physical locations of your online competitors. The real story is that we have 4 horseman in 2 large geographies that have large balance sheets we are a point of innovation and change.

The final indicator of this change was Amazon acquiring Whole Foods Market out right and making it a subsidiary. Jeff Bezos always said that Amazon would open stores when it made sense.


The simple truth is that we are beginning to see the creation of integrated commerce. Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba and JD.com are investing in retail locations as well as their online efforts to grow market share and leave their competitors extended financially and at their mercy.


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The 10 e-commerce stories for the week ending 10 August 2012

Square gets a cup of coffee from Starbucks, Maelle Gavet from Ozon.ru, Multiply pivots to ecommerce,  ShopGo enables ecommerce in the Middle East and mobile commerce is the week in a few words.

The summary of the 10 e-commerce stories for the past week highlights just how global ecommerce is. Let me start by saying it was a fun week for news and plenty of excellent articles made me think about the future. Russia is the last big market that is available for ecommerce investment but the Ozon story highlights how dominant the company is. Remember the name Ozon.ru, as I suspect that the company is on track to become a emerging market heavy weight.

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The tale of 3 commerce IPO’s – ecommerce news of the week

The past week contained events that might not be seen again soon. Three companies (Rocket Internet, Zalando and Wayfair) that have a connection to ecommerce that has gone public. Rocket Internet and Zalando went public in Europe and across the Atlantic, Wayfair went public as well. The public companies will experience very different environments and one needs to keep in mind that they are all 3 businesses that went public after Alibaba; which in my opinion did take some interest away from these businesses.

In Europe Zalando and Rocket Internet went public and had a tough few days on the markets. Both companies lost value due to market feedback. I am planning to write a blogpost soon about my own thoughts on Rocket Internet and to a lesser degree Zalando IPO’s. I will concede that it is a massive moment for European startups as in a space of a week 2 companies that have their headquarters in Germany suddenly are valued in Billions of Euros. Can Rocket and Zalando grow at 40% top line year on year?

In Boston, Wayfair became a public company raised $320 million from investors as part of their IPO. Wayfair for me is quite different than the German companies. One – they have been around for longer, have made a considerable amount of revenue but I have to question if the growth is sustainable? How much money will be have to be spent to build the Wayfair brand? Greg Betinelli had an in-depth look at their S1 and provides some great insights into the Boston company.

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Is commerce a zero-sum game?

Over the past two weeks, I have sat in meetings and have heard executives discuss commerce unflattering. Retail is dead, and commerce is a zero-sum sector, and it left me dumbfounded.

As I have realized, commerce is a sector that has two parts that consumers use to interact with it. In-person (retail) and via technology (e-commerce) is not harmonious if you read the press.

The battle between the store and online.

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Who is Amazon’s biggest challenger?

Having read George Taylor’s interesting article on “The battle over global commerce: Amazon vs Rakuten“, I feel a bit of perspective is needed. Amazon is a true giant that spans over many different business and Rakuten is the challenger trying to catch up. However, they are not the only commerce companies that want to be global.

I spent time in Seattle and New York in the latter part of October 2012 and one company has been following me coast to coast is Amazon.com. I had meetings with folks in operations and research and Amazon was given plenty of air time.

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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?

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The 10 e-commerce stories for the week ending 11 January 2013

Foundem starts legal proceedings against Google in the UK, Bezos does not care about profit margins and 2012 was a good year for South African ecommerce

The first real  working week of 2013 is in the record books and the news from across the ecommerce globe confirms it. Legal issues is starting to make news again and it seems that the word “anti-competitive” is back in the lights. Google has been accused of being anti-competitive by UK vertical search engine Foundem. The European part of the Google ruling has not been done and may potentially not be like those seen with the FTC.

Secondly, the Bazaarvoice acquisition of Power Reviews may also be potentially create results that ensures that the acquistion ensures changes to the Reviews market in North America. I am not a lawyer but it seems anti competitive acquisitions by companies that have potentially have huge implications on a specific market or vertical always creates activity for the Department of Justice.

One other story that has really interesting implications is Rakuten’s decision to “retire” buy.com and rebrand the business to Rakuten Shopping. It is becoming clear that this is the strategy that Rakuten does. Acquire a business, rebrand it and then potentially change the business model. Marketplaces seems to be their business model of choice.

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A conversation with Sina Afra

I had the opportunity to meet Sina Afra while I was in Turkey. Afra is the Co-founder and CEO of Markafoni a flash sales commerce business that was acquired by Naspers in July 2011. Markafoni is after Ventee-Privee the number 2 flash sales business in Europe.

Sina Afra, is one of the few CEOs of a big commerce business that writes a blog that has become something akin to a must read for me. His annual state of Turkish commerce posts have always been a favorite of mine as it is in-depth and contains a lot of really good insight. I see Afra in the same light as some of the big ecommerce founders – visionary, thought leader and most of all a key part of his country’s ecommerce ecosystem.

A few things were highlighted for me in our conversation:

  1. Sina is fiercely loyal to the Turkish ecommerce industry. He made no attempt to hide that which was great to see. In general most commerce executives I meet are in general stuck at watching the big players (Alibaba, Amazon and eBay) but forget about their local ecosystem. He made the point that in his mind Turkey is in the top 5 of the most important developing markets.
  2. He was absolutely inspirational in describing his business to me. The mere fact that he could recite key metrics made me realize just how in tune he is with his business. I am going to be trying to be more like him here as that ability to be fully aware of the business was beyond impressive.
  3. He made a great point of being able to look at the founders of commerce businesses in more detail regarding their education, background etc. I have heard this thinking once before (Jack Ma of Alibaba in one of this many videos) and after thinking about it in some detail I realized that this is something I have not thought about in more detail. This becomes very important when a new competitor enters your market as then you are able to understand their thinking and strategies.
  4. He also made a very clear case that the flash sales vertical is alive and well. Markafoni, Gilt and others are still making sales and delighting customers. I found this to be quite refreshing as I thought that the flash sales industry is under pressure.
  5. He made a very important point regarding emerging markets and that is that the ecosystem is very dependent on investors, angels and VC’s. We tend to forget about this factor when looking at a specific market. A great point to be aware of and also to keep in mind.

I can honestly say – that the time I spent with Sina Afra was inspirational and highly educational. Turkey is very lucky to have him in their ecosystem as he has experience that not many commerce CEO’s have.

Rakuten buys eBates, eBay to unveil mobile advertising in apps – eCommerce news of the week

We are a week or 10 days away from the Alibaba IPO.  Alibaba’s IPO is currently driving the ecommerce industry as companies ensure that they are best prepared after Alibaba raises billions. One company clearly working hard to combat Alibaba’s potential impact is Rakuten. Rakuten has been acquiring US based businesses which they will add to their Asian based business. Interestingly – I wonder why has Rakuten not thought about acquiring businesses in Asia? Their last 2 purchases has been US based companies that for all intensive purposes will become bolt-ons. The eBates acquisition is in my opinion a clever acquisition – one it can be added to Rakuten’s global business but also provide intelligence towards where shoppers get most cash back post purchase. Is Rakuten looking to buy more ecommerce companies?

Something is happening at eBay and it is not good. Firstly – Apple conveniently does not mention PayPal as part of their Apple Pay product. For the record I think Apple Pay being US only is indicative of Apple trying to get all elements (partnerships, legislation etc) done prior to rolling it out globally. PayPal has a problem; Amazon, Google and now Apple are looking to add more value to their payments businesses while keeping PayPal outside their ecosystems.

I don’t agree with the news that eBay will be adding a mobile advertising network in Q4. It reeks of desperation as advertising inside mobile apps lead to confused users, a drop in click through rates that adversely affects mobile conversion rates (which are low in any case). I don’t see Alibaba, Amazon or any other mobile apps ecommerce business as adding advertising soon.. Also this story, every quarter that Google is to invest in eBay is either eBay looking for help from Google or an analyst that wants to increase the eBay share price for a few hours. I don’t see Google investing in eBay as that will in the long run create huge trust issues for Google inside the commerce industry.

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Alipay and Stripe make a deal, Amazon to become a publisher? – eCommerce stories of the week

The week for ecommerce was a quiet one in terms of news but some news stories are going to be driving the ecommerce landscape in the next 18 months. The one company not involved with the Alibaba IPO, Alipay struck a deal with Stripe, the new hot payments startup. Alipay is the company that is going to drive the Alibaba behemoth long term and this partnership with Stripe is massive. It is the first time that I can think of a Chinese payments company makinga deal with a US focused payments startup. This story validates something that I have been thinking about – PayPal is no longer the hot digital payments business. I am fully aware of the past history between eBay and Alibaba but the fact that Alipay has partnered with Stripe speaks volumes.

What is the real story behind the Amazon vs Hachette fight? Amazon supposedly wants better pricing for ebooks and wants to charge publishers for services related to special, ebooks etc. There has been a lot of stories around this but I think that is not the real battle that Amazon is fighting. In the UK, Amazon wants to be able to print books that are no longer available from publishers. Holistically, this makes sense as in the UK and US markets Amazon is one of the biggest book sellers. If Amazon will be able to do this (long term I think it it will happen) right now is another question, it seems unlikely but the process has started and Amazon has placed the book industry on notice again.

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Live-Streaming from [insert city name]

Every few weeks, an article on the future of commerce makes an appearance in my research. The problem is that these articles are still referencing to retail and e-commerce. The future looks very different, as commerce needs to be entertaining and relevant. Live-Streaming is already active, and smart devices leveraging voice commerce seems distant.

Live-Streaming is the social commerce element that will scale in all markets. Why? Consumers all have mobile phones. Creators and merchants are looking for shopping cart abandonment solution which communicates trust.

Live-streaming on Taobao Live
Source: Forbes
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