Amazon to enter Korea?, Apple opens a Tmall store, LivingSocial’s CEO is out, Google to unveil a new flight comparison service in Europe and much more.

Readers, normal service will now return as the news in the ecommerce space is back to normality. I did not want to write a post in the second week of year as the news section was a bit bare.

If you look at my highlighted stories above you will notice that the stories focus on a trend that I believe we will see a lot of in 2014 – the move to global brands in ecommerce. Amazon is moving into new markets, Apple has opened a store on Tmall and the move towards global ecommerce brands continues. It is clear to me that currently there is a land grab battle going on between the big international ecommerce businesses and the battles are all happening either behind closed doors (funding rounds) or in the public domain (new markets that are being entered).  Add to this the pending IPO of Alibaba, then one can conclude that we are in for an interesting year.

Something else, that I am beginning to see in a variety of markets is consolidation. This is a natural by product of market maturation for me or it could be a case of new businesses looking to become big players in a market. A prime example of this is Groupon, the company that just never wants to become quiet. They have been investing and buying heavily in a wide variety of businesses. Their acquisition of ideeli is a simple case of a distressed platform that needed a buyer. Add to that the acquisition of Ticket Monster then you realise that Groupon is going to be around for a long time. Where does leave LivingSocial?

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Amazon to reach $100 billion in 2014?, Car buying revolutionized, Price Machine Offers Unbiased Shopping Insight, E-retailers join the marketplace race and much more.

It is the first week of 2014 in the record books, the week contained some references to issues experienced over the festive season by Amazon etc but in terms of news it was a slow week. Call it the calm before the storm (the year) or just that most businesses were either closed or running skeleton staff.

I think the coming year is going to contain a theme that will most probably be getting a lot of attention by the big ecommerce businesses, logistics. If Amazon and eBay really want to disrupt retail as they claim then they will need to invest into logistics. Call me crazy, but I think there is a lot more behind Amazon’s partnership with USPS than what people are talking about.. For Amazon to grow and become completely dominant in the US they will need to own the last mile in terms of delivery. UPS, I suspect will be doing a lot more planning for festive 2014 than that was seen in last few weeks of 2013.

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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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