Electric Thoughts in a Digital Era | A blog on eCommerce, Social Commerce, Marketplaces & Business

The 10 ecommerce stories for the week of 2 August 2013

Pinterest shows it’s ecommerce aspirations, Amazon does an experiment with Collections, Insights into rural China ecommerce and much more.

The week that ended on Friday can just as well be called the “week of competitors”. Across the ecommerce landscape competitors had Mexican stand offs with one another. The eBooks saga with Apple has taken a very interesting turn with the judge ordering that Apple should allow outward links to Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s online bookstores. Apple have already said that they will contest the recommendation from the judge but I wonder how Amazon has kept below the radar on this matter over the years?

Pinterest has finally shown their commerce play but price alerts and extra pin types, really? Well they have been placed on notice by Amazon. Amazon debuted Collections which looks a lot like Pinterest but no-one noticed something else. The facebook like buttons on Amazon product pages have disappeared. Increasingly, I am thinking that Amazon is placing greater emphasis on their own platforms.. I am still not convinced over Pinterest and their future.

Then in China, Alibaba revoked the usage of WeChat by their users. WeChat is a Tencent property (a very large competitor to Alibaba in China but not directly competitive in ecommerce). Increasingly, Alibaba is also becoming more restrictive on their platform which is understandable, yet I cannot wonder whether this is is a platform battle as well?

The 10 ecommerce stories for the week of 26 July 2013

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.

Amazon doing an FBA pilot

Earlier today a reader contacted me with some very interesting information on a pilot that Amazon is testing currently. The contents of the communicated has been redacted to protect the identity of the source but a few things are clear to me.

One – Prime is becoming more important for Amazon to combat the impact that Google will have on their business and bottom line. Being able to provide a standard Amazon experience to all shoppers and then leverage Prime to enable more transactions just highlight just how valuable Prime is for the Seattle company. Amazon Prime is the worlds greatest loyalty program.

When Bezos and co create a revenue generation opportunity via a new investment or feature it is to be leveraged multiple times to recoup that investment. This very factor makes me realise just how far Amazon is in front of their competition. Think of it as Lean Startup meets Walmart.

The 10 ecommerce stories for the week of 19 July 2013

PLA’s are a direct threat to Amazon, Wayfair to make a billion in revenue by year end, Shopzilla buying Zappli and moving their advertising network across the Atlantic.

Google posted their results this past week and it was reasonable to say the least. However, a few things stood out – Product Listing Ads is now a big revenue driver (not surprising) and it is clear that the move to optimised Adwords ala PLA’s is aimed at Amazon. The other thing that is becoming also more visible is that Google has a mobile problem in terms of revenue. Google is clearly concerned over the impact that Amazon has in ecommerce thus PLA’s are being used as an offense against the Seattle giant. They have been testing a few things the last few weeks but while mobile is a revenue concern companies have an opportunity to compete with Google.

The most interesting story for me this past week is Shopzilla. This company is in my view the most forward thinking regarding comparison shopping. First, they acquire a mobile commerce business called Zappli which has lead to talent getting bigger roles inside Shopzilla. On a side note here, I wondered why Jody Mulkey left Shopzilla for Ticketmaster and it now makes sense. His position has since been taken by a Zappli executive. Secondly, Shopzilla moving their advertising business to Europe is also indicative of a company trying to leverage their assets in markets that are not as competitive as those seen in the US.

Thoughts on SA e-commerce

I have had 2 articles on my mind that has lead to a few thoughts on the state of South African ecommerce. Paul Galatis wrote a very interesting analysis on why ecommerce in our country is lagging and then Andrew Lynch asked out loud what is wrong with ecommerce in South Africa? Paul and Andrew are both entrepreneurs in the ecommerce space in South Africa thus the articles hit home for me and it lead to this post.

Paul mentions that the reason why we are behind is not due to the normal factors mentioned in conversations over coffee etc. Instead, it is due to retailers not paying enough to ecommerce and thus not executing it to the masses.

We’ve all heard the arguments and many of us have used them repeatedly: South Africans are nervous to use their credit cards online; internet speeds are slow; the postal service is unreliable; we don’t trust that our orders will actually arrive; we still want to touch and feel products before we buy them; and that South Africans shop differently to people in the rest of the world. I used to tell that story but now I have a different idea.

I have been in the ecommerce space for close to 5 years and can unequivocally state that the industry has moved forward. There are many more ecommerce businesses in the country now that what was the norm back in the early 2000’s. The growth is seen in the fact that almost every retail category (home goods, electronics, pharmacy, clothing, wine etc) are now represented by an online business that competes with the physical retailer we all are accustomed to visit. Payment gateways have doubled in providing prospective entrepreneurs with options to process credit cards. So, what is the matter and why are we always asking about the state of the ecommerce industry?