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.

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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.

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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…

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One Kings Lane raises money (almost a billion dollar valuation), Gilt offers logistics to a competitor, PayPal pitching Apple on Payments, Walmart trying to gain ground from Amazon, Amazon posts results, JD.com to IPO, leaked Twitter commerce screenshots and much more.

Phew – what a week of ecommerce news with lots of permutations for the rest of the year. The big story was clearly Amazon’s Q4 report and it was a bumper festive season for the US’s biggest ecommerce business. “Net sales increased 20% to $25.59 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $21.27 billion in fourth quarter 2012. Excluding the $258 million unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales grew 22% compared with fourth quarter 2012.” The problem is that the company only made $238 million in profit or 51 cents per share on revenue of $25.59 billion. Amazon continues to make razor thin profits. Interestingly, the company mentioned that they will be increasing the price of Amazon Prime by either $20 – $40 per year for users. The increase in Prime pricing will not be a difficult value proposition for users in the US.

JD.com has filed for an IPO in the US and aims to raise $1.5 billion from the IPO. The irony in this is quite priceless as JD.com (360buy.com) has been playing second fiddle to Alibaba in China yet will be IPO’ing before the commerce behemoth. It will be interesting to see the appetite for shares from JD.com.

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The future of ecommerce, Flipkart to be Largely an M-Commerce Company, Tiger Global snaps up Alibaba shares at a giant valuation, Argentina and Russia restricts ecommerce and much more.

The past week has contained stories that has me shaking my head in disbelief (Argentina and Russia restricting ecommerce) and thinking about the future of ecommerce. What is the future of ecommerce? The short answer is I am not sure. I see a combination of mobile commerce with personalization, location based services that includes social commerce in some way or form all together. Social commerce has been on my mind for the last few weeks as I think Asia is showing everyone that messaging is also part of the future. I will continue the thoughts in a longer post on social commerce soon..

I am going to be a bit controversial in a minute as I think ecommerce in Argentina and Russia got given the short end this past week. Long story short in both cases have legislation ensured that importing of international goods from international merchants (eBay, Amazon and Alibaba) become a long and difficult process. I believe that in both countries are the incumbents (MercadoLibre and Ozon) benefiting from this sudden change but in both counts the biggest losers are the locals buying from these international juggernauts. I have a fundamental problem when corporates use legislation to slow down the progress of companies that innovate and do better customer service than local companies. This development surely will hurt Russia’s position as an emerging market that ecommerce investors are looking at.

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