Fab Continues With Layoffs, Russia is not China or Brazil and the Kindle Arrives In Australia – eCommerce Stories Of The Week

Fab Continues With Layoffs, Russia is not China regarding ecommerce, the Kindle Arrives In Australia, Zulily goes public and much more

So Zulily is now a public company. First of the flash sales businesses to become a public company and worryingly is very thin on revenue. The problem I have with this whole situation is about expectations and that the Zulily IPO will make future ecommerce IPO’s difficult. I personally cant see how they are valued so highly and they are trading at multiples of the reality of Zulily’s business. Think about it – they are a low margin, marketing driven commerce business worth 50% of a mega business called Nordstrom. How does the CEO of Zulily handle these market expectations?

The Kindle has arrived in Australia and the global impact of the Kindle is being seen in board rooms of publishers and ecommerce businesses. So that is the Digital Kindle business open in Australia, Brazil, India and Japan. Amazon has a presence in 2 of these markets and in the other 2 they are standing on the outside looking inside of potential revenue.

It is another week of fab.com layoffs. I find no pleasure in writing the news but I have to wonder whether this is what Jason Goldberg had in mind when this process started. It seems that a large majority of senior staff is about to be made redundant and then will leave employment at Fab in early 2014. I must say it is becoming clear for me that fab is close to it’s Andrew Mason moment. Is it a case that they grew out of proportion with finance pressure or that Goldberg believes that he is driving force behind fab.com. Remember the last few months of Andrew Mason’s tenure at Groupon..

  1. Learning Amazon’s supply-side secrets – The lead that Amazon has on its competition related to logistics is massive. Increasingly Amazon will use this to defend their lead against competitors or change in legislation. Anyone notice how quietly all the panic over state tax has dissipated? I have and that should scare all of Amazon’s competitors.
  2. Etsy will soon show millions of products in French, German, Italian, and Spanish on Google Shopping – Etsy is slowly emerging into a gigantic business. They have continued to use Google Shopping as a way to enter into new markets and regions. Is it a case of market saturation in North America or a business development strategy that is to create a sustainable future for Etsy?
  3. Topshop Makes Pinterest The Source Of Holiday Spirit – Pinterest has now reached their point of no return. They have open APIs and have retailers using their platform to lead product development and advertising strategy but how does Pinterest monetise that?
  4. At E-Commerce Firms, Russia Rise – Russia was in the news this week for some or other reason.Russian ecommerce is a complicated business that contains variables not seen in many markets. ASOS and eBay are looking at investing heavily but a lot of that money will be spent on logistics and educating Russians on the safety of their platforms.
  5. Website Update – LivingSocial just cant get a break at the moment. First they sell off their prized asset in South Korea to their arch-rivals and the week there after their apps and website goes down. I can imagine that the developers had to work hard to resolve this issue but luckily no user or credit card details were compromised.
  6. Marketplace App Carousell Raises $800K Seed Round Led By Rakuten – C2C ecommerce is growing at an enormous rate in South East Asia. The startup will use its funding to expand into Indonesia and Malaysia before tackling other Southeast Asian markets. Rakuten are clearly hedging their bets in South East Asia..
  7. In Amazon and Walmart’s Battle for Dominance, Who Loses Out? – To answer the question it is retailers competing against both Walmart and Amazon. The scary thing is that at the moment Walmart is a bit in front in emerging markets but Amazon has clearly put their sights on dethroning Walmart as the world’s biggest retailer. The customer wins massively as both businesses are willing to make losses in certain categories but I believe global retail will be affecting by this battle.
  8. Arvato Russia CEO Michael Poetschke: “For fulfillment, Russia is not China”– Russia is a market that will pose significant pressure on new entrants. The reasons are simple: low productivity and big deficits in infrastructure and human resources makes Russian ecommerce an outlier.
  9. The Infographic of Turkey’s eCommerce – A fantastic infographic made by Markafoni that contains the reasons in Turkish why Turkey is such an important market for ecommerce. Turkey has in my opinion flown below the radar regarding the importance in terms of global commerce.
  10. JingDong: “Premium experience is our priority” – China’s number 2 ecommerce player after Alibaba.”Jingdong has had an aggressive, forward-looking mobile strategy. More than 80 million Jingdong apps have been installed to date which is particularly important in China where smartphones are the internet access point for many consumers.”

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Onwards..