Amazon earnings, Google retires it is mobile shopping apps, Bigcommerce raises capital, eBay takes Now to the desktop and much more.

The week that finished was full of ecommerce news. Needless to say it was dominated by Amazon’s earnings which missed. I am not too surprised as Bezos has been investor mode since early January. Content has been acquired aggressively and increasingly I think Amazon is playing defensively to ensure that Google has no impact on their future. Tom Szutak, provides the minimum amount of information on analyst or investor calls as Amazon ensures that no-one has an idea about their future.

Google on the other hand are also making their ecommerce play known. The rumored hangouts play called Helpouts is supposedly to use hangouts to facilitate a marketplace like experience. Surprising? Not at all, in actual fact this sounds alot like what Taobao does between sellers and customers. The question arises – how does Google facilitate transactions on this platform? I still don’t think we have seen Google’s commerce play but increasingly they are doing their bit to become a commerce player. I also think that commerce will be done the Google way.

The announcement that Google is shutting down their comparison apps is also not too surprising. Why? Think about it, what has Google been focusing on the last 12 months? Product Listing ads, which have a mobile product as well. Apps dont allow for these ads to show so Google is driving users to use mobile search to enable conversions to occur via the mobile product extensions.

We want to focus our efforts on Google Shopping and Google Search, to create a better, more consistent shopping experience across all devices. To help us focus on that goal, we’ll be shutting down the standalone Google Shopper app on August 30.
Going forward, you can search directly on Google (or use the Google Search app on mobile devices) or visit google.com/shopping in any browser. Our best features are there: you can compare prices, shop on the go, find a product in stock locally, check out product photos, read reviews or find product details.

The 10 stories that captured my attention this past week:

1. How do smartphones reveal shoppers’ movements? – The Economist details how shops are using wifi to track user movement. “The use of Wi-Fi tracking allows merchants to anonymously track individual shoppers more accurately than is possible with video, particularly in crowded stores. It also means returning customers can be spotted without the need for facial recognition, by looking out for known device IDs.” Need I say more?
2. eBay Brings Same-Day Delivery Service eBay Now To Desktop, Prepares Regional Expansions – “eBay Now, the same-day shipping service that first debuted for San Francisco residents nearly a year ago before further expansions into San Jose and New York, is preparing to broaden its service yet again, with added support for the Bay Area Peninsula, plus Brooklyn and Queens, as well as Chicago and Dallas later this summer,”. I have been thinking the entire week over this story and wonder why they took 12 months before adding desktop support for eBay Now? It feels to me that the desktop users have been added as the product has not made enough headway being mobile only.
3. M-commerce boom in Zimbabwe – “Online and mobile transactions have for the first time surpassed card payments in Zimbabwe after recording 28,3% growth in the month of May.” Mobile transactions are normally the sign that a market is growing in terms of p2p payments (Kenya), my question here is how many commerce transactions is actually happening?
4. Tech Giants Want to Win Same-Day Delivery — Even if It Never Makes Money – I still think the costs associated with same day delivery is a huge barrier to adoption. If it is so critical why has it taken 10 plus years for the commerce players to start developing it? That is the question that no one is asking..
5. PayPal Unveils Modern Spice Routes: Cross-Border Shopping Creates Economic Opportunity Worldwide –  PayPal commissioned a Nielsen study on cross-border commerce. Very interesting and full of great insights. Definitely worth a download.
6. Alibaba Building China Delivery Net in Shift to Consumers – Alibaba will have an oversubscribed IPO and is a massive business that will create markets. Jack Ma created a business that will over time become the dominant ecommerce business globally. Alibaba says it generates ~70% of package deliveries in China which means that logistics companies are wanting to be part of the Alibaba logistics network..
7. Thanks to smartphones, Amazon is softly killing retail shopping and is better at it than Google – This is the biggest element that Amazon has completely owned. It has become a habit for shoppers to check prices against. Showrooming is overstated in my mind, as after the price comparison customers still buy items in store.
8. E-commerce platform provider Bigcommerce raises $40 million in funding – Bigcommerce is a platform that small to medium sized commerce businesses use to power their online stores. The additional funding is great but the expertise gained from Steve Case will be invaluable. Bigcommerce is in a battle with shopify etc for a market segment that is currently booming.
9. Woolworths steps up e-commerce effort – As a customer it makes me happy that retailers in South Africa are beginning to recognise the importance of ecommerce. However, we are at the beginning of the journey..
10. Jeff Bezos Doesn’t Care What You Think About Amazon’s Quarterly Earnings – Brad Stone writes a great article on Bezos not being concerned over what analysts and Wallstreet thinks about his business. Bizarrely, with Amazon missing their stock price increased (yes, I am not even making that up)

Bonus links for the week:

• Why would AHAlife, a luxury commerce site, buy Kaptur, a photo sharing app? – When businesses need one another for surival ..
• eBay Is Testing A New Local Service Provider Marketplace In The UK – Angie’s List or Home Depot’s Red Beacon than TaskRabbit or Exec. On the eBayHire site, the company states that “eBay Hire is a pilot being run by a few folks at eBay in the UK. It is a separate business to eBay, but is part of the eBay, Inc. family.” If this is anything like Red Beacon then it may potentially lead to eBayHire being seen in other markets. If I was the founder of TaskRabbit, I would be looking for either raising capital or being acquired as this space is becoming crowded (eBay and potentially Google).
• Taobao and Tmall Target Hong Kong and Taiwan E-Shoppers With New Regional Shipping Options – “The two Alibaba-run sites now have options for an International Parcel Forwarding Service for e-shoppers in those three areas. It marks the first time the sites have made all their merchandise available outside of mainland China.” I mentioned this earlier in the year and I think this will continue for at least another 12 months as Alibaba moves into other parts of Asia.
• Rocket Internet’s FabFurnish Opens Its Second Partnership Store In Bangalore – This pattern of online stores opening physical stores has me shaking my head. You are giving all the advantages away by opening a physical store thus your business is becoming a retail business? Or am I missing something?
• Ten percent of Starbucks transactions in US come via mobile payments – This is big and makes my point over Starbucks. Mobile is obviously something that Starbucks has as a future proofing of their business right?
• Zulily hires banks for possible IPO – sources – Wow! If Zulily goes public then they would definitely they would upstage Gilt etc. “However, Zulily’s focus on kids’ apparel and mothers as shoppers has helped the company grow quickly. Founded in 2009, the company said late last year that it had 10 million members and featured 35 sales events daily.”

Onwards..