UPS fails to deliver, Jingdong has 16 billion reasons to celebrate 2013, the hidden side of ecommerce returns, Alipay flexes its financial muscles, Line partners with Rakuten’s Tarad.com and much more

The festive season is over and one company got badly burnt by the bad weather and lateness of orders – UPS. UPS has been getting quite a bit of press over their inability to deliver all Christmas packages by Christmas day. A few things need to be kept in mind – global economics ensured that customers shopped until the last minute for Christmas in the hope of better deals. Amazon gained a million customers for their Prime membership which I am guessing leads to 20 million customers paying for expedited shopping. I cant believe that UPS did not plan for this – in actual fact I think the last minute shopping lead to a surge in packages that nobody took into consideration.

UPS ships 40% of Amazon’s deliveries annually but I wonder whether this issue will lead to a strained relationship in 2014? The one company that gained from UPS’s misfortune – Target.

The biggest winner in the Christmas gift shipping debacle? Target whose security breach is no longer The Big Retail Story.

— Sucharita Mulpuru (@smulpuru) December 27, 2013

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Amazon acquires GoPago, MTN enters the commerce race, eBay wants to help retailers, Social Network Odnoklassniki Shuts Down E-commerce Marketplace, Alibaba to enter Brazil and much more

It is the second last week of 2013 and on reflection it has been a massive year for ecommerce. Amazon continued to show the lead for all ecommerce but in 2014 will be facing a new competitor indirectly, Alibaba. If I can summarize 2013 into a few thoughts – the globalisation of ecommerce. The ecommerce industry saw significant growth in all markets (Africa, Asia, Europe and both North and South America) and it will continue to grow more speedily in certain markets in 2014.

If I look at the stories of the last week then Amazon acquiring the GoPago technology is one that raises a few questions. It literally is all about the technology and the details from Seattle has been sketchy on this acquisition. I think it is interesting that Amazon will acquire a business only for its technology and then not be able to retain the founder of the business. It is supposedly for an ambitious project – and if I guess it has something to do with collection of bought items.

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Alibaba invests in Haier, Jack Ma named FT’s person of the year, Zalando getting their house in order for an IPO, Amazon to launch “Pantry”,  Jason Goldberg  tries to provide context on Fab’s problems and much more

Phew what a week, having a look at the highlights – it is becoming more difficult to pick stories to highlight every week. A few major stories happened in the last 10 days which I believe will have a significant impact on ecommerce in 2014. Alibaba is going to be a massive story that will impact everyone in ecommerce, Amazon seems to have grocery shopping on their mind and Zalando will IPO in 2014.

Alibaba and Amazon are known quantities in their respective regions and both businesses have scale that can crush smaller businesses. Alibaba is also an unknown regards to their investments and long term plans. It seems that the one part of their business that they are investing heavily is logistics. The $364 million investment into Haier is in my mind a dual sided strategy – it gives Alibaba access to another logistics network that will be a stop gap until their logistics network is completed. It also provides Alibaba with a partner whom it able to install the items bought on Tmall and Taobao.
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AmazonFresh to open in San Francisco,  Amazon and Drones, Wayfair to hit $1 Billion after a massive year, Zalora raises more capital and much more

The week that contained Cyber Monday had a story that dominated the press for the entire week. Drones, drones and drone delivery by Amazon is the easiest summary after Jeff Bezos gave 60 Minutes an exclusive look at the future. It is clear that Bezos hit a nerve as Eric Schmidt said that drones must be banned. Funny how driver less cars are OK..eBay CEO John Donahoe called Amazon’s drone ambitions “long term fantasies”, funny how there is no mention of his own plan for shoppers to be delivery people..

The point is that Amazon is going to be pushing the envelope as they are willing to take risks. Lest we forget that Amazon already has an army of robots that will save them up to a billion dollars in warehouse inefficiencies. I would love to know how much free marketing this drone story got Amazon the evening before Cyber Monday.

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