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?

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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.

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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.

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Trouble at The Iconic, Square enters the marketplace space, Amazon wants be a digital art dealer and Fab raising money

Fab.com has been in my thoughts the last 2 weeks. Are they growing too fast? Do they play the PR game and what is their future? Those 3 questions have been circling in my thoughts and in all honesty I am more unsure about this business than before they raised the money.

14 million users, $310 million raised and many acquisitions. Those 3 things together does not make any investor jump for their checque books, in all honesty it raises question. I am a Jason Goldberg fan ( I read his blog and I get the daily fab emails) but I think we need to look at a few things in context.

One – they consistently mention becoming an Amazon of design. Amazon is business that is non repeatable and it is a behemoth. eCommerce is a margins game and fab with respect is going to battle becoming a $1 billion dollar business. Why? I don’t they can scale the business to make that kind of revenue globally. What makes Amazon scary is that it has a variety of methods to make revenue (AWS, Prime, Marketplace, Fulfillment by Amazon etc) what does Fab have that can be seen in a similar manner? At the moment nothing. Secondly, this created version of ecommerce – emotional ecommerce is really a Goldberg creation. No other industry analyst, CEO, VP has made mention of that. I get that they need to create themselves a niche but I think fab needs to take a few lessons from Amazon. Be transparent but really try to tone down the rhetoric and focus on achieving customer happiness and make a lot of revenue before telling everyone about it.

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Google unveils Shopping express in San Francisco, Amazon acquires Goodreads, Walmart does Lockers as well and much more.

It is April fools day which leads to a complete lack of trust in news today. Readers, my post today is what was news last week and no funny stuff. Last week was an interesting week and I think is a precursor to where the rest of the year is leading to. Google has unveiled their Shopping Express service in San Francisco and surprise surprise the first merchants listed are all retailers that have been burned by Amazon. I think this is a stake in the ground moment for ecommerce. North American ecommerce is clearly Amazon vs Google but the interesting tidbit is that Jeff Bezos was an early investor in Google.  Amazon Prime is the gold standard in terms of logistics and I wonder how many millions of dollars Amazon has spent on it over the years? Yes, I think Google is now a player but they still have considerable work to do to catch up to Amazon.

Talking about Amazon, the Seattle business has acquired Goodreads for $150 million if AllthingsD has it correct. The question is why did it take so long? I think Amazon will continue to buy businesses that can compliment their Kindle ecosystem. I have a feeling that this was also done as a defensive move to ensure that none of the competitors could acquire Goodreads. I always come back to the fact that books and content is key to Amazon’s future. Readmill, you better be ready, Amazon may come knocking soon.

It seems eBay is looking more at the emerging ecommerce markets. Today’s news that they have played a role in the new round of funding in Snapdeal does not surprise me one bit. The BRICS will play a very big role in ecommerce over the coming years. I wonder how eBay is going to approach Russia as that seems their next target.

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