Amazon powers ebook market in Japan, Rakuten acquires Viki, eBay acquires decide.com and much more..

I have had a busy September thus far – travelled to an undisclosed location, thinking about some ecommerce related posts and digesting all the ecommerce news that is hitting my inbox and RSS feeds. Thus you are not seeing things – I am writing catch-up posts that should have been written earlier in September.

Rakuten must feel like they can’t win. They are the dominant ecommerce business in Japan and they have expanded to other markets (UK, Germany and Brazil) but in most cases they end up against one business Amazon.com. Amazon has also not been shy in competing in Rakuten’s backyard and cleaning out certain verticals. I must confess I read Marketplace 3.0 written by the CEO of Rakuten and am left unsure whether Rakuten has the foresight to be able to compete against Amazon, Alibaba and others. Rakuten has also bought business to equip itself against competitors (Kobo etc) but in the greater scheme of things are these businesses scalable to compete against the heavyweights?

Rakuten acquired Viki which can be seen as an entry into the streaming of digital content and also will play a great role in validating Singapore’s startup community. I have a feeling we are going to be seeing a lot more startups being acquired out of Singapore.

On a sad note – one of my favorite ecommerce businesses will be shutting down at the end of September. Decide.com has been acquired by eBay and will be used in the seller side of the marketplace. I cant help but notice the irony in eBay acquiring a Seattle company to beef up its marketplace business. Decide.com I believe is going to be seen as a mark in the sand as I don’t think this is the last time we will see machine learning and data orientated ecommerce startups flying below the radar. eBay is essentially doing a acquihire of some of the smartest people in ecommerce. eBay will need to ensure that they leverage the decide.com IP as they will add massive value to eBay sellers tools in order to price better etc.

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Flipkart shelves plans for IPO, eBay has 6 hour downtime, Why Tencent invested in Fab.com, market intelligence / stats for Latin America, China, Japan and South East Asia.

We have entered the last quarter of 2013 ( where did the year go?) and certain story lines have begun to develop. Chinese ecommerce is now in full on battle mode. Alibaba and Tencent have been at odds with one another but this week JD.com revoked the payment options from both Alibaba, Tencent and others. It is pretty clear that market leadership is not up for grabs but a turf war is on. Payments, merchant communication and infrastructure are all being fought between the different companies. (I suspect that the winners will be Alibaba and Tencent as JD.com’s money will run out sometime).

eBay had some issues this week – they were down for 6 hours; no formal announcement has been made as to the reasons for the downtime but we are in the revenue generation part of the year. Operational ecommerce staff are getting ready for festive and all of its challenges. eBay have their work cut out – they are facing the ecommerce Gorilla in the room (Amazon) in the US so these issues are to be at a minimum.

Flipkart has been busy. They raised money ($200 million) from investors and are now steadily adding revenue generation opportunities to their business. A payments business plus a partnership with self-publishing business are all in progress. India is a tricky market filled with government regulation which makes foreign investment an interesting exercise but the large population has everyone interested in the market.

Amazon is increasingly showing their international strategy. Why? Well, every developing nation they have entered have been via their Kindle Store. Mexico joined Brazil, Russia and India in having an ebook store. Mexico is going to be interesting to keep an eye on as it is one of the fastest growing emerging markets. The past week also provided an article that highlights the size of Amazon’s business in the US. It is massive and has the potential to become even bigger.

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Amazon invests $13 Billion into warehouses, Bing sunset Bing Shopping, VANCL raises its 7th round of funding and much more.

The last week made me realise something (nothing profound) and that is that ecommerce is now global. It is done primarily via 2 models – either take a recognizable name and open businesses across the globe ( Amazon and Rakuten) or invest into businesses in multiple regions (MIH / Naspers, Rocket Internet and Tiger Global). The point is that the Internet has provided an opportunity for entrepreneurs to sell pretty much anything online. (For those interested, this past week – I had a delivery from Japan, the US and 3 originating in South Africa). I cant think of any other business that has that kind of opportunity for entrepreneurs and executives to create meaningful businesses.

Jeff Bezos is a clever man. Long time readers will be aware that I consider him the standard for ecommerce executives. However, Bezos is increasingly having to face challenges from multiple angles. One, I think retail businesses have now realised in the US that they need to be aware of the threat that Amazon possesses. That is nothing new but the considerable advantages that Amazon had over traditional retail is slowly becoming less. The marketplace act will ensure that tax is now collected in every state. I find it very interesting how everyone thinks this is a problem from Amazon – Bezos is already on the way to make that into a benefit for Amazon. How? He has invested heavily into distribution centers. I think we can safely assume that Bezos has already planned for any eventually. One – he is making his competitors ( hello Walmart, eBay and Rakuten) spend heavily. Secondly – one thing we all forget is that Amazon has become a habit and one click buying is easy to do. Why does everyone still question whether Amazon will be around in 5 years time? I think I am going to answer that in another post soon.

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Jingdong to enter the US?, Alibaba invests into ShopRunner, Bad news for LivingSocial (was there any good news about LivingSocial?) and more

Ladies and Gentleman, may I be the first person to put it on record that the Superpowers (Tencent, Jingdong and Alibaba) of the East are beginning to move to other markets (Europe, US and others). Alibaba and Tencent are the businesses that in my mind will disrupt big Internet businesses. Alibaba have made a handful of investments into US ecommerce businesses which are all areas that they lacked in. Tencent, I think will disrupt mobile commerce in a very big way. However, the news that Jingdong (360buy.com) met with partners in the US made me shake my head in disbelief. It makes little or no sense – as the incumbents are invested into the market heavily and potentially could lead to a heavy spending spree by JD.com (not that that has been a problem).

Alibaba’s investment into ShopRunner is an interesting one as that seems to be a clear ploy to counter Amazon Prime. I am going to say this once – Alibaba is the only company that can battle Amazon head on. The rest will have to watch the market moves and ponder the future. Whether Alibaba wants to go directly against Amazon is another question?

LivingSocial with Groupon were the ecommerce darlings for the quick investors but both are looking at strategies to survive. Groupon is pivoting to being a local commerce businesses focused on payment, restaurant bookings etc. LivingSocial bought aggressively in 2011 and are looking in real bad shape. How long before the completely disappear is the real question. Ticket Monster, LivingSocials big acquisition is for sale..  Is it a case of model no longer being relevant? The Group buying business is in my mind, the digital version of impulse buying and that is not a sustainable behaviour to replicate online. Groupon is however making progress and in all might be the only survivor in the group buying space.

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Assessing Zimbabwe’s readiness for eCommerce, Google launches a vehicle insurance comparison service, The battle in China between Tencent and Alibaba is on and much more.

It is Wednesday and if I look back in the last week on my twitterfeed, RSS reader (yes – it is not dead) and by all the email I read then I can categorically say we are in for a very interesting 12 months ahead. In China, the 2 super powers are beginning to battle one another. Alibaba in my mind is a company that scares me (I have a long post coming on the East’s ecommerce powerhouse) it has scale, has 2 dominant platforms (Taobao and TMall) and increasingly is showing their intentions. Their biggest direct competitor Tencent is the social powerhouse that has most of China on their networks. They have a trojan horse called WeChat I think is going to be a big deal. Tencent wants to play in ecommerce but Alibaba is ensuring that their walled garden is protected. Alibaba blocking WeChat is a big deal and I think is a sign that we are going to see these businesses spend millions of dollars to disrupt one another.

In the US – last week was literally the Jeff Bezos show. There was so much news that I wrote a separate post on it. Did anyone notice the timing of this PR fest? Suddenly all the negativity in Germany regarding labour relations is no longer front of mind. I personally think that Bezos is leveraging something that he can control. He speaks seldomly to the press and does a good job of repeating the trusted customer focus gospel. AmazonFresh is Bezos going after retail and creating a defensible against any competitor (Walmart, Google and the rest). Amazon and Alibaba are the same in my mind – they have the potential to shut businesses down.

In South Africa, there is a battle looming between the banking sector and ecommerce businesses. The biggest loser is the ecommerce industry. I am all for secure payments but surely the process should not have a negative effect on transactions and the ability to complete them. This is one of the reasons I think mobile has another potential impact on ecommerce – being able to act as a digital pass to allow transactions.

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