Electric Thoughts in a Digital Era - Page 19 of 43 - A blog on eCommerce, Social Commerce, Marketplaces & Business

eBay invests into Snapdeal, Google ups the importance of commerce and Rakuten has big plans for Europe – eCommerce stories of the week

eBay invests into Snapdeal, Lazada’s big bet on Southeast Asia, How online shopping is helping Nigeria fix its Internet reputation, Tencent to invest in JD.com?, Copycat Business Model Generates Genuine Global Success for Start-Up Incubator, Google ups the importance of commerce, Rakuten has big plans for Europe and much more.

There are 2 stories that has dominated the ecommerce landscape in the last week and they both have eBay in them. eBay lead a massive round of funding for Snapdeal and pretty much told the world that they will be acquiring Snapdeal in the coming months / years and Carl Icahn has been pressing the eBay board for a split with Paypal. The Icahn story has become something akin to a mud wrestling battle between the 2 parties and I think it is pretty poor form for this to be playing out in the public domain. Sure, as an investor in a public company it is important to hold the management and directors accountable for their actions but this mudslinging is not doing any party any favors.

The talent exodus continues at fab.com. I wonder how many of the staff in hindsight would have taken employment from fab.com if they knew the rocky road that they would be on down the line? It is interesting to note that the only senior management staff member that is around is the CEO Jason Goldberg.

The eBay Turnaround that Never Had to Be, Zalora to IPO?, Amazon rejected in Czech Republic – eCommerce stories of the week

Modnique Launches into Four More Countries, Amazon hikes the price of Prime in Europe, The eBay Turnaround that Never Had to Be, Zalora to IPO?, Amazon rejected in Czech Republic, Snapdeal to be a the most interesting IPO in Indian ecommerce?, The phases of commerce and much more

It has been an interesting week in ecommerce to say the least. Lots of interesting news on acquisitions, businesses planning to IPO and strategic changes made by businesses. The changes are almost all related to Amazon which clearly is going to be increasing the price of their Prime shipping product. The sign that kind of gives that indication is the change in pricing seen in the UK and Germany. Amazon will lessen the change by offering additional services to customers in the various markets in which prime operates. In the US, I suspect that the addition of a TV Box will be seen as a reason to pay for the price increase. They have already added Lovefilm in Europe to lessen the price change in the mind of their customers. Amazon has also added Kindle coins to their businesses as a further sign of the importance of their appstore which is primarily aimed at Kindle Fire owner. Gaming, video and book content is the target purchases for users of Kindle coins inside apps.

The real reasons behind Rakuten’s Viber purchase

Rakuten, the Japanese ecommerce giant has done it again. They have bought another company that has raised alot of questions about their merger and acquisition strategy. Viber, the messaging company that uses wireless internet to do phone call is now a Rakuten company.

The issue with Rakuten for me is that they have little or no strategy on acquisitions in comparison to their direct competitors like Amazon, Alibaba and eBay. The company seems to be moving away from being a commerce based business to being a media distribution company. Their recent acquisitions: Wuaki.tv (streaming movies), Pinterest (crowd sourced curated content), Kobo (eReader) are all not really commerce related but bolt on acquisitions for a company that does commerce.

Purpose of acquisition

Viber is a messaging and VoIP service operator and has approximately 280 million global registered users, and monthly active users over 100 million. Viber apps on smartphones allow users to have conversations, and through its high quality functions users can send and receive messages and images, thus Viber offers a hybrid range of services rarely found on competing platforms. Viber is rapidly growing numbers of users, especially in emerging countries.

The Company decided to acquire Viber to strengthen its global platform through the use of Viber’s range of customers in the Company’s E-Commerce and digital contents services.

Alibaba to enter the US?, Vente-Privee Seeks $11 Billion Revenue & Gilt to go public in Q3 – eCommerce stories of the week

Amazon’s Junglee Ties Up with Quikr, China’s Suning approved for international express delivery service, Alibaba to enter the US?, Vente-Privee Seeks $11 Billion Revenue, Gilt to go public in Q3 and much more..

This past week felt like a long list of announcements about ecommerce companies going public in the latter part of the year. Gilt, Alibaba, Jumei (not to be confused with Jumia) all are expected to list in the US before the end of the year. Alibaba is going to be the big story that will change ecommerce globally (we have already seen the first move) but the others are all having to go public to raise additional funding to grow their businesses. Alibaba’s pending launch into the US ecommerce market via 11 Main is a very interesting story. Details are very sketchy which makes me believe that this is the first big story that has Alibaba driving the storyline. Let me be clear Alibaba is going to disrupt B2C ecommerce in markets where there are not a clear number 1.

Ecommerce in India is seemingly becoming a 3 horse race. Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon.in are all trying to capture the large opportunity that is Indian ecommerce.

Newegg launches a Prime competitor, Alibaba valued at a $150 billion and Amazon enters Brazil – eCommerce stories of the week

Aramex shows good results from its emerging markets theory, Amazon adds Flow to its mobile app, Flash sales have to go mobile or they will die, Newegg launches a Prime competitor, Alibaba valued at a $153 billion, Amazon enters Brazil with the Kindle, Wayfair valued at $2 billion and much more.

I have a question which is bordering on being rhetorical but it is worth ponder over. What is the total amount of money spent in ecommerce to counter Amazons total domination of the business? In the 20 years of its existence there has been billions of dollars invested to counter the movements of the Seattle based online retailer. They are currently single-handily changing the ecommerce ecosystem through most competitors going to the marketplace model (longtime readers will be aware that I don’t think that is a good idea) and indirectly leading to competitors going out of business. Amazon is the only business that can make little or no profit and the financial world is fine with it. The current race to compete with Amazon Prime is another economic impact for Walmart, eBay and now Newegg. So with that as background how many billions has been spent on combating Amazon?

Alibaba has been valued at a $153 billion but the more I read the more I wonder what businesses will be part of the IPO? From an investor point of view I believe they will be hoping for Tmall. Taobao and Alibaba, Alipay and Aliexpress but I think it will be Tmall, Alibaba and Aliexpress. I would be surprised if any other businesses are floated but I am speculating at the moment…