The 10 ecommerce stories for the week ending 16 November 2012

Bezos named Fortune Businessperson of the year, Taobao break records, Kinnevik invests more into Rocket Internet and Rakuten is active in South East Asia

We are days away from Black Friday and about a month away from Christmas. The reason why I mention these events are that every ecommerce business is now in lock down mode. Staff work more hours, technology is now watched to ensure no service delays occur etc. We are now in the part of the year in which whatever strategy was worked on for the first 10 months of the year is now to be executed.

Readers, normal service will now be returning as I am finally in the position to write some more. I was on leave for 17 days at visited the US. Catching up on the origins of ecommerce was a thought provoking exercise. I met many folks who left me more excited to be in Africa as it seems the we are the next long term play. I have much content to write along the lines of my post from last week “Who is Amazon’s biggest challenger?”

I think Andrew Mason must be kicking himself as Groupon is on the downward slope. Surely selling to Google with hindsight was the right exit? Daily deals has maximum 18 months to last in my mind. The story of the past week has to be Taobao breaking all kinds of ecommerce records on a holiday. Needless to say, I would love to have been on the infrastructure team watching this event in real time.. I can only imagine how stressful this day must have been.

Without any more babbling, the 10 ecommerce stories that got my attention:

  1. Chanel who? E-commerce has barely made a dent in the luxury goods market – A thoroughly amazing post on the fact that fashion and ecommerce is getting fuzzy. Having seen and felt the buzz in New York, I can only say keep an eye on the fashion industry and their creative usage of ecommerce (I take no responsibility for making your head hurt).
  2. Taobao’s absolutely gigantic day of sales – When your platform has, in the first minute of a holiday 10 million visitors, you realise that Taobao is linked to Alibaba’s future success. Chris West makes a very interesting case in that he believes developers should consider Taobao as a dream job.
  3. Rakuten Belanja Online Reveals Newest Stats, 500% Growth in Merchants – South East Asia is now a hotbed of opportunity for investors. Rakuten has taken an aggressive launch strategy in protecting their turf as “Asia’s second biggest ecommerce business”.
  4. Shopzilla Adds Premiere Web Site to Growing Portfolio of Shopping Brands – The terms of this acquisition was not disclosed. However, why would a comparison engine in North America acquire a competitor?
  5. Top Japanese firm in bid to push e-commerce in Thailand Thailand is a market with great potential and investment is being done aggressively. Is this a response to Rocket Internet’s aggressive strategy in South East Asia?
  6. Amazon’s Bezos Knocking on Wood for a Record Holiday Season – Jeff Bezos has spoken and this sounds ominous for competitors.
  7. Kinnevik sinks $40m into Rocket Internet’s “Amazon for Asia” Lazada – Rocket Internet is claiming market leadership in South East Asia. Kinnevik has a billion dollars invested in Rocket Internet across the globe.
  8. Online retailer Loot.co.za secures funding from Titan Investments A new investor into a South African ecommerce business is a good sign for the entire industry..
  9. E-commerce 2.0 – Jeff Jordan from Andreessen Horowitz has a thought provoking article on ecommerce. A must read for any ecommerce professional.
  10. How Zara Grew Into the World’s Largest Fashion Retailer – A great article on one of my favorite fashion businesses. Zara have changed with the times.

Bonus links for the past week:

Onwards..