The 10 ecommerce stories for the week ending 31 August 2012

Walmart has a Polaris moment, 360Buy blocks eTao, JadoPado sees big potential in the Middle East and more

It is the last day of August 2012 and this past week has been nothing short of a ecommerce hotpot. So many stories, story lines and ideas that makes my head spin (it feels like I don’t have enough time to write this).

This week has a significant milestone in it, Walmart telling the world about their new semantic search engine (Polaris) which I think is a big deal. It is clear that Walmart feels threatened by Amazon in terms of ecommerce, they have bought startups to ramp up their own offering. I said it a few weeks ago, the loss of the Kosmix founders was way bigger than what the press articles mentioned. Remember that they both created Junglee in the 90’s and then sold it to Amazon. The Junglee name has returned in India for Amazon, but what I find interesting to watch is the  amount of ex-Amazon talent taking jobs all across the globe in ecommerce. I speak from a bit of experience, they are like gold. Seattle water must be different or something but heck, their thought patterns on ecommerce is very different but always backed by reason and fact. I am a believer in experience, you cant buy it which leads to clearer goals and better decisions. That for me is Walmarts big disadvantage, they have all in the knowledge in retail but their ecommerce talent roster is bare.. prove me wrong Walmart and I will retract that sentence.

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The 10 e-commerce stories for the week ending 24 August 2012

JP Morgan invests in a Rocket, LivingSocial confirms exit of MENA, Turkish ecommerce delights and Kindle launches in India.

It is Q3 and it is obvious that global ecommerce companies are gearing for the end of 2012. Heck, the M&A activity is hot and happening. As an observer of ecommerce activity it is becoming ever increasingly visible that developing ecommerce markets is the new battleground for the big players. There is not one part in the value chain that has not seen a spike in activity.

This past week has raised serious questions on MENA for me. Egypt is rapidly becoming a battle field for companies looking to get first mover advantage. I thought when LivingSocial entered MENA via an acquisition that the market would become more mature in the coming 12 months. The news this week that LivingSocial is moving out of the market poses questions on just how viable the Middle East is.

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decide.com – the language of ecommerce

Backed by science, not marketing.
Decide.com

Decide.com – make a note of that name. 12 months ago I found the Seattle startup after doing research on ecommerce recommendation engines (This was prior to Hunch being acquired by eBay, whom I thought was onto something). Recommendation services for ecommerce products are high on the agenda for ecommerce powerhouses whom I believe are looking to acquire these service providers or startups.  When you have the user’s attention and willing to pay then a recommendation could lead to an addition into the shopping cart. Upselling is a classic retail strategy yet in ecommerce it is not something many execute well. Lets all agree that Jeff Bezos was well before the time when Amazon rolled it out. The truth is that it needs to be refreshed.

Anyway, what is the one thing that all ecommerce users fear? Besides the courier losing the product, it is buyers regret. I am honest, I have had one occurrence of it and it hurts real bad. Suddenly a joyous event hurts right into your credit card. So, recommendations and additional references can ensure that users know that they are really getting the latest, highest rated and best price for a product they wish to acquire. Decide.com tick all three boxes and I believe that clever shoppers will realise that decide.com is a real hero in the purchasing process.

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The key differences between Google Product Shopping and other CSE’s?

An ominous “warning” from Google to other Comparison Shopping Engines.

Q: From a retailer’s perspective, what are the key differences between Google Product Shopping and other CSE’s out there? How should I allocate my CSE budget?
A: The main difference between Google Product Search and other comparison shopping engines is that Google gets the most traffic and spends the most money on their engine.  If your budget allows you to be on only one engine, it should be Google Shopping. However, it’s better to be on a variety of other engines because they can all be profitable with the right datafeed management.  If you are able and budgeted to expand and are willing to spend the time to manage them all, you should enlist on other CSE’s, notably the Big Four: Nextag, Shopzilla, Shopping, and Pricegrabber. Luckily, you can refer to lucrative channels on our quarterly rankings of big CSE’s.

The high level of traffic is the product of providing a service for free.  Spending the most money on the CSE is a very interesting tidbit from Google. I am aware that they have acquired Like.com, moved all the technology from boutiques.com to Google Product Search. Then they also acquired Sparkbuy which was a very good recommendation engine and British financial comparison service BeatThatQuote.

So Google Product Search at the moment = Like.com + Sparkbuy + BeatThatQuote + Google technology

I can most probably also add the ITA acquisition as well as that has to do with flight comparison technology. It is pretty clear to me that the changes in progress to Google Product Search will have a large set of implications for  Google.

I am of the belief that online retailers should list with all comparison shopping engines and then determine for themselves which CSE converts the best. Trying to list with just one comparison engine (if it is not the most dominant one in a particular region) is a bad idea. Your conversions should make the decisions not the talk from the account or product manager from a particular Comparison Shopping Engine.

Disclaimer: I have issues with how Google operate.

What is under the hood at Zalando.de?

Amazon.com is well known for creating custom software for their platform due to  scale. Millions of products, transactions and real time pricing and data that is used by Amazon internally ensured that off the shelf software would be totally inadequate. I for one, can only imagine that petabytes of data is consumed in Seattle.

Generally, technology companies like to keep the opposition guessing. What is under the hood and successful is not shared with the public. Yes, legal will most probably have a heart attack if you share technologies used. Employment contracts ensures that Intellectual Property is protected to the T and any disclosure could lead to immediate termination.

However, Zalando (the fashion business inside the Rocket Internet Empire) thought they would share their technology by means of an Infographic. To be clear, it provides an idea of the technologies used by the Zalando technology team.

Big Sales need Big Software. Discover Zalando’s E-Commerce Platform.

While Zalando is well-known for it’s massive and unique growth as a retailer since 2008, little was known about our technical platform yet. Time to give some insights into how Zalando uses technology and mindset to produce and run excellent, fail-safe and scaling E-Commerce APIs and applications for millions of demanding customers.

The entire image can be seen here: Zalando Technology (The image is interactive, so when visiting the Zalando Technology website, expect that every division has a roll over)

Why is this a big deal? Why do you share this kind of information on the same day that investment from J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Quadrant Capital Advisors is announced?

“The company has quickly established itself as a leading online fashion retailer in Europe. We are impressed with Zalando’s large, growing, and loyal customer base as well as the breadth of products offered on the company’s eCommerce platform. Zalando’s world-class fulfillment resources and dedication to superior customer service should enable the company to expand upon its leading market position.”

I would think that you keep as much of this inhouse to ensure that you retain the competitive advantage of the technologies used..

Hat Tip to Exciting Commerce for the highlighting this information on Zalando.