Electric Thoughts in a Digital Era

Author: Hendrik

  • 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 Amazon effect

    “Google = fab search, Amazon = top-notch retail, Apple = elegant devices, Microsoft = dominant Windows, Facebook = best social networking.”
    Kara Swisher, on Yahoo

    The last few days have been busy for Amazon and in all honesty, I think the bigger implications of this week will be seen in future quarters.  I have  been deliberately not mentioning Google in this as I think the implications of a paid for Google product search (Google Shopping) is much larger than what is expected.

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  • The 10 e-commerce stories for the week ending 02 August 2012

    Naspers, Rakuten, GSI Ecommerce and flash sale ecommerce get some headlines…

    The past week can be summarized into one thought “Just how global is ecommerce?” Truth is that the man on the street has little idea nor is it important for him. His primary mission is to buy that product that he wants. Sometimes, I feel that we in ecommerce forget that. When last have you asked your team “How are we helping our users get the desired end result?” I will most probably follow that thought with a post soon.

    The past week had featured stories on Naspers and acquisitions. For me the most interesting story line was that on Rakuten. Hiroshi Mikitani, is the man trying to take his ecommerce business (Rakuten) into new markets. There is also some interesting news from startups (decide.com, Instacart) and a regional look. In three sentences, I mentioned businesses in a large number of markets and it highlights just how global ecommerce is.

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  • The 10 e-commerce stories for the week ending 27 July 2012

    The past week was one dominated by earnings. Amazon disappointed but showed signs of where their growth is coming from. One thing that seems to have gone missing this week in all the Amazon doom and gloom is that they have a long term strategy. So they had a bad quarter.. yes, there are others who would not mind being in their position.

    I believe that we are also beginning to see the power of the marketplace for a variety of verticals. Amazon is the standard and the results back it up, startups are trying to assist users either sell no longer needed items or help them them acquire items. The point is this vertical is growing in importance.
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  • Why Amazon.com is neither Friend or Foe..

    Earlier today Brian Walker from Forrester Research wrote a very interesting summary post on a research document on Amazon.com, called Amazon.com: Friend or Foe? I have great respect for both Brian Walker and co-author Suchurita Mulpuru and would love to see the research piece. As much as I respect them both, Amazon.com is a complex Rubiks cube that is both secretive and dominant in how they are perceived. All the news that they want the world to see is either given to the press or released via press release.

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