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Alibaba buys Sina Weibo, Shocks the World
1
May
May
It may be time to begin a new section on this blog, it should be titled "Alibaba World Takeover." I feel a new tag being created.
The News!
While we were all busy following with excitement the abdication of the Netherlands' Queen (said no one ever), Alibaba was sneakily buying up stocks in Sina's Weibo.
The USD586 million cheque gives the giant e-commerce platform an 18% stake in the country's largest microblogging service.
This venture into social media is a big step for Alibaba who have not yet made any steps in this direction. In classy world dominating form, they chose to start this venture by buying up the largest, most important microblogging service in China.
Is Sina Weibo a good buy?
The real challenge now will be to see if Weibo was worth the investment. Indeed, speculation that the site has already reached its peak are abundant and perhaps not all wrong.
As Alibaba is such a leader, this may be a blessing for Sina if they do indeed believe some new blood needs to be pumped into the platform.
New forms of Social Commerce
Apparently the future is in social commerce, the way in which smart marketing has combined the two favorite things we like to do on the internet: social media and buying.
Indeed, if this is the case then this purchase by Alibaba will come as no surprise to anyone.
Alibaba has also been putting its money in different areas including a flirting app (what?) and a music streaming site.
All in all, Alibaba is moving forward with its expansion and hoping that Weibo will enable it to become a multi-performance company leading the chinese pack to global dominance.
Russian Internet Statistics Infographics: Users Ecommerce Mobile
17
Apr
Apr
You already know that the russian online market is developing, but now you have the figures, and numbers speak better than long speeches.
Click on the image to enlarge it:
360buy.com To Be Renamed JD.com
31
Mar
Mar
China's much loved electronics B2C e-commerce site 360buy.com has decided to get a new name in a bid to bring everything from the company together. Indeed, the owners, JingDong want everything to be under one proverbial roof if you may. The new name will be JD.com so learn it and remember it folks.
What's new?
The 80 million registered users at 360buy.com will be also glad to find out that the company has created a new mascot called…wait for it, Joy! Apparently it represents loyalty to customers or something equally as hilarious and Chinese.
A quick Google search has led me to understand that the mascot is indeed a robot-like dog. Now I see the link with loyalty. That is smooth Jingdong, very subliminal.
So a rebranding and a new mascot! Clearly the big boys at Jingdong have been busy lately.
Why all the change?
Could it be that the company is struggling to keep up with the all the e-commerce happening in China at the moment? It is, after all, one of the most lucrative businesses to be in.
There are also allegations of price fixing floating around at the moment concerning Jingdong and others. This means that they have to be squeaky clean in the future to ensure their survival. It's like the airline gas scandal all over again! Will companies never learn?
On a positive note, the big Jingdong has managed to raise quite a bit of cash form investors, including form Walmart.
Indeed, it has managed to amass cash akin to $1.1 billion to ensure its continued investment on the Chinese e-commerce market and potentially a move into international markets.
Did you know?
Jindong can actually deliver in 24h to 165 cities throughout China. I'm not even sure the UK has 165 cities. They must have their own fleet of jets or something, this cannot be done solely through snail mail!
Vancl Becoming a Simple E-Commerce Site
28
Mar
Mar
China's e-commerce market is one of the most active ones in the world and is currently one of the most lucrative. Indeed, as much of China's middle class lives in more remote areas, far away from bricks and mortar commercial points, shopping online enables them to be a part of the domestic consumers market.
The once original e-commerce site that would only sell its own brand of clothing on its dedicated platform Vancl.com now seems to be morphing into any other e-commerce site out there.
What has changed?
The ultimate goal used to be to have a site dedicated to the sale of Vancl clothing, whose motto is to provide affordable fashion to men and woman around the world.
When the group launched V+ it started to offer 3rd party products perhaps in a bid to bring in more revenue. Despite this move into a larger selection of products, the company stuck to its sole idea of selling fashion and accessories. It did not however move into electronics or books as many other e-commerce sites have done.
The big difference now is that we are seeing 3rd party products available on the Vancl.com platform instead of its own brand clothing.
Now does this stem from a possible slowdown of sales from their own brand dedicated site? Is the company moving towards all the other e-commerce sites in China who are fighting for a part of the market?
Is Vancl sustainable?
The idea of an own-brand only platform may be a good way to ensure the distribution of their personal lines of clothing and really advertise the brand as an online fashion line. However, the reality is far from that as people want to buy different brands and e-commerce companies it seems can only exist if there is enough variety for people to keep coming back.
The success of websites such as Tmall are precisely because they offer such a large variety of products and fashion items that people keep returning to the site as it is their reference for what they are looking for.
It's similar in the way we use Amazon in the west as our reference books/electronics.
If we speculate based on what we are seeing happening of vancl's site, there is a strong possibility that the two sites will become one and the own-brand space will disappear.
No news from above
Nothing official has been announced nor have there been any hints dropped by big bosses at Vancl so we will just have to wait it out and see if predictions are correct.
It's anyone's guess what Vancl will do next. Plus, with absolutely no news, advertising or movement from the company we can all go and place our bets. I personally think they will start breeding greyhounds and develop the sport all around China.
Rakuten: An Internet Giant
21
Jun
Jun
Rakuten, the Japanese giant e-commerce platform and the world's third largest e-commerce company by revenue (US$ 4.94 billion in 2011), is expanding beyond its traditional Japanese borders faster than ever.
Founded in 1997 (older than Google) by Hiroshi Mikitani, its flagship e-commerce website Rakuten Ichiba utilizes a business to business to consumer (B2B2C) model, whereby merchants create online shops on the marketplace and sell directly to their customers. Today, shoppers can browse over 95 Millions of products from more than 40 000 virtual shops.
Heading to the Western World
In the past two years, the company has closed an impressive figure of 10 deals, making several acquisitions such as the French e-commerce site Priceminister for €200 million, US-based Buy.com for US$ 250 million and UK e-commerce Play.com for £25 million, Brazilian e-commerce company Ikeda, and the e-commerce startup Tradoria in Germany.
But the company hasn’t stop yet, as on Thursday, 14th of June, the Japanese firm has just bought the Spanish online video platform called Wuaki.tv. As the Spanish firm is operating in a very different field than the e-commerce, it may be surprising at first but as explained by Rakuten’s CEO Hiroshi Mikitani:
“The Wuaki.tv management team and technology are both very strong, as is the number and strength of its relationships across the video and hardware industries. We saw synergies in the ambition of both businesses to expand internationally while video on demand extends our digital goods offering”
Beside these acquisitions, Rakuten has also made some strategic investments in startups, investing US$ 100 million in Pinterest last May and purchased a minority equity stake in Russian online platform Ozon.ru in last September. Moreover, the company is also looking for new growth opportunities in new markets and has bought the Canadian company Kobo, which produced the Kobo e-reader, in November 2011.
Keeping a Foot in South East Asia
The company is not only looking in Europe and the USA to expand, but also taking in consideration the huge potential of some countries in Asia such has Malaysia and Indonesia where the company has respectively launched Rakuten Online Shopping and Best Denki Indonesia. Both of these new services will be run under their in-house B2B2C selling platform.
Going to globalization
In 2010, in order to transform the Japanese company to an international one, Rakuten has announced its wish to make English the company’s official language by 2012. As the day of today, we don’t know if this goal was reach or not as no announcement has been made recently to confirm the success of this operation.
According to an Interview made by CNN in February 2011, Hiroshi Mikitani explained that some boards have been displayed within the Rakuten’s offices asking employees to speak English as much as possible each Friday even if most of them are Japanese.
After being asked to explain this specification, Hiroshi Mikitani said that, as the company is going to the global stage, they will face more global players which of course they need to compete against them, in this situation talking English for all employees is a part of the strategy.
Acquisitions and Investments made by Rakuten since 2010
- January 2010 bitWallet, Inc. is consolidated as a subsidiary of Rakuten, Inc.
- July 2010 Acquisition of Buy.com for US$ 250 million
- Acquisition of Priceminister for €200 million
- June 2011 Rakuten acquired the Brazilian firm Ikeda (Rakuten Brazil)
- July 2011 Acquisition of startup Tradoria in Germany (Rakuten Deutschland)
- Sept. 2011 Rakuten purchased a stake in the website Ozon.ru
- October 2011 Purchase of UK e-commerce Play.com for £25 million.
- Nov. 2011 Rakuten agreed to purchase the Canadian ebook Kobo.
- May 2012 Investment of US$ 100 million in Pinterest.com
- June 2012 Acquisition of the Spanish video platform Wuaki.tv
As the pace of acquisitions has increased in the past months, we could expect some news coming from the Rakuten headquarters and this could lead to an even bigger internet player from the Rakuten we know today.
The Future of Ecommerce: One Shop, Thousands of Windows
25
Nov
Nov
Ecommerce has reshaped how people shop these past few years. More and more people now search information and buy products or services online.
And this current trend is here to stay. That is why online buyers and sellers have to adapt themselves to become smarter and then benefit of all opportunities offered by ecommerce.
Here are a few brief thoughts about the future of ecommerce.
Ecommerce as Custom-Tailored Experience
I think there is no doubt that successful ecommerce sites will have to create a unique experience for each visitor.
What I mean is that online retailers will have to provide you with a custom-tailored experience that can remember your preferences, estimate your level of interest in a certain item, and make dynamic adjustments to prices and options.
In brief, do everything so you have a great online shopping experience, and therefore transform your visit into a sale.
In my opinion, by implementing powerful online marketing features, combined with attractive design, Ecommerce of the future will look like a static catalog less and less, and feel more and more like a dynamic offline shop.
Adapt to visitor’s environment
Don’t get it wrong, ecommerce websites already adapt their shop to visitors, but I’m sure this will go further.
Today, when you visit multilingual online shops, have you ever asked yourself why your default language (if available) is displayed?
Actually webmasters can set language of their website according to your web browser preferences or your IP location. For instance, if you have your browser in Chinese, ecommerce websites can choose to display their website in Chinese to you.
The same applies for mobile devices. When you visit an online shop from your iPhone or Android, you can be redirected to a mobile version if available.
However, I'm sure online retailers could go even deeper to adapt their shop windows to their visitor’s environment. Many have talked about a convergence of “mobile, local, and social”. I think ecommerce is clearly going this direction too.
1. Mobile
As Internet users access Internet from their mobile devices (phones, tablets) more frequently, mobile commerce (also known as m-commerce) has been booming the last few years.
Even though mobile commerce is still an emerging channel and only accounts for a tiny share of all ecommerce market, I'm convinced it will continue to grow in the next years.
2. Local
Online retailers could go further in terms of local customization. I’m actually thinking of three examples:
- Adapt your shop window according to your visitor's location. If your visitor is located near the seaside, maybe you could show him sunglasses and swimming suits! If he’s near mountains, he could be interested in walking shoes, backpacks, or hiking jackets.
- Adapt your shop window according to weather. Imagine today is really sunny, what about display sunglasses and swimming suits in your main shop window?
- Adapt your shop window according to period. Many offline and online shop already do it. For example, if your target market is located in a country where Christmas is celebrated, show them items related to Christmas.
3. Social
Social will also be the key of ecommerce in the future. Why? Because you are more likely to buy something that your friends recommend you.
Adapt to visitor’s behavior
In addition to adapt your windows to your visitor’s environment, you could also think of adapting your shop to your visitor’s behavior.
Let’s pretend one of your visitors visited cameras in your online shop. Well, maybe when he comes back to your homepage, it could be relevant to show him some cameras.
This technique could be actually similar to retargeting, also known as behavioral retargeting. You could therefore target your consumers based on their previous actions on your website, especially when their actions did not result in a sale.
China is Future of Ecommerce
China will undoubtedly play a major role in the future of ecommerce. China is expected to overtake the US as the world's largest ecommerce market by 2015, according to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
China's ecommerce market is projected to reach more than 2 trillion RMB (approximately $314 billion) in transaction value by 2015, the number of Chinese ecommerce shoppers growing to 329 million during the same period. See our previous article about China's Ecommerce Market in 2010.
How do you see the future of ecommerce? Feel free to share your thoughts below.
14 Ecommerce Drupal Themes
20
Oct
Oct
Here we come back about web design with more Drupal themes, and this time we focus on ecommerce!
Most of the shopping templates below are compatible with Drupal 6 and a few ones with Drupal 7.
However, all are optimized for Ubercart. Ubercart is a Drupal module that unlocks the power of ecommerce functionalities, from inventory, payment to reporting tools.
Here are 14 Ecommerce Drupal themes ranked by alphabetical order:
Acquia Prosper is a classic free ecommerce Drupal theme created by TopNotchThemes. With a monochromatic look and clean lines, it is designed as an Ubercart e-commerce theme that is easy to customize, but is also extremely flexible for any type of website. Acquia Prosper is compatible with Drupal 6 & 7.
Also designed by TopNotchThemes, Clean Commerce is a premium shopping Drupal theme. With minimalist and monochromatic design, it is an Ubercart-optimized theme. Clean Commerce is currently only available for Drupal 6.
Ecommerce Pro is a professional premium Drupal theme. The theme can be customized. For instance, you can choose 5 theme colors among blue, red, orange, pink, and green, and customize the front page slider, as well as a dropdown product image gallery. Designed by Themesnap, Ecommerce Pro is compatible with Drupal 7.
Designed by DrupalStyle, Frame Ecommerce is a beautiful free Drupal shopping theme with clean and contemporary look. It is optimized for Ubercart and compatible with Drupal 6.
5. Inci
Inci is a premium ecommerce Drupal theme designed by SymphonyThemes. It is compatible with Ubercart and Drupal 6.
6. Luxe
Created by TopNotchThemes, Luxe is an elegant premium shopping Drupal 6 theme.
7. Market Share
Also designed by TopNotchThemes, Market Share is a corporate ecommerce Drupal Theme. Many possibilities to customize this theme compatible with Drupal 6.
Modern Ecommerce is a free shopping theme for Drupal 6 with clean layout and powerful features.
Pump up the Volume is a dark Drupal 6 theme optimized for Ubercart by TopNotchThemes.
10. Seashell
Designed by ThemesShark, Seashell is an original ecommerce Drupal theme compatible with 6.x.
11. Sharp Sales
Sharp Sales is a shopping Drupal theme with a classic look and compatible with Drupal 6.
12. Shoppica
Designed by Themesnap, Shoppica is a beautiful ecommerce Drupal theme compatible with 7.x. It notably features unlimited color combinations.
13. Tech Stop
Tech Stop is a professional shopping Drupal theme by TopNotchThemes compatible with 6.x.
Designed by DrupalStyle, Traffic Ecommerce is a free Drupal theme with a very catchy design.
If you want other Drupal themes, please read our previous blog posts about 25 Free Drupal 7 themes and where to download best Drupal themes.
Alibaba Wants to Acquire Yahoo
11
Oct
Oct
Jack Ma, Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group, recently confirmed his strong interest in buying US Internet giant Yahoo, during a speech in a conference entitled "China's 2.0: Transforming Media and Commerce" at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
The video is really worth watching since Jack Ma also talks about ecommerce, notably about his companies Alibaba and Taobao, and explained how these company have succeeded, the mistakes they have made and the difficulties they now face.
Here is the full video:
Yahoo currently owns 40% of Alibaba while Alibaba owns Yahoo China. Last year, Alibaba acquired an US ecommerce website named Vendio and bought shares in Sogou, a Chinese search engine.
Google Launches Trusted Stores
8
Oct
Oct
Google unveiled a new feature, namely Google Trusted Stores, which will help stores having greater authority online. An ecommerce certified by Google will be therefore considered as a professional service that can be trusted.
Here is the official video on Google Trusted Stores:
How to get Google Trusted Stores badge?
To be accepted as a Google certified trusted store, your ecommerce website has to meet several requirements and performance standards. For instance, you have to be used to shipping products in a reasonable amount of days, resolving issues quickly and having a low percentage of customers reporting issues.
The Google trusted stores badge will display reliability of shipping and customer service as below:
The program is still in a beta phase. However, you can apply to become a Google Trusted Store. Some merchants who have already tested the feature include Overstock, BabyAge and Wayfair.
What benefits for customers?
In addition to enable users to clearly identify ecommerces that can be trusted, Google also offers purchase protection to customers.
Google Trusted Stores purchase protection will consist of helping users who have an issue with their order and cannot resolve it with the merchant. Google will work with them and the retailer so the issue can be resolved.
Implications for SEO
From a SEO perspective, what are the impacts of Google Trusted Stores on rankings?
User experience has always been important to Google which takes it into account as a ranking factor for search (for example site speed). However, with Trusted Stores, Google moves beyond the simple user experience and deep into the more complex concept of customer experience.
Measuring customer experience is far more difficult than measuring user experience since it requires data detained by merchants and customers. However, Google will be able to access data from merchants and customers through Trusted Stores, and can therefore assess the customer experience by benchmarking retailers for example.
I cannot believe that negatives scores, such as late shipping and bad customer service ratings, would not affect search results.
Exclusive : 3 Suisses is Leaving China, One more Foreign Victim
13
Jan
Jan
3 Suisses is leaving China (the online ecommerce I mean) One More victim on the chinese ecommerce market. It seems that foreign companies are cursed in china. You heard about google leaving china, ebay, or facebook, youtube, and twitter being blocked in the country. The list is increasing year after year, and the reasons on how foreign companies fail on the Chinese market are debated on many forums.
3 suisses is not a newbie online, the company is one of the leaders on the French market. 56% of their turnover comes from their online store! Obviously they know how to deal with it… but not in China.
They fired everyone in the company in china in the past weeks and they will close the company in February. They made no public announcement yet but it’s obvious that they will have to since everyone in the company here in china knows about it.
What is really surprising is that they were among the firsts to enter the Chinese internet market, even before many well known Chinese companies. But maybe the competition level is too high, and new comers like vancl.com have just a too massive advertising investment to compete with them (basically, you see vancl everywhere online, on buses, on TV, on Outdoor advertising! and you also see their delivery guys everywhere in the city delivering the orders)
It must be a hard decision to leave such a huge (and growing) market, but maybe it’s part of a more global strategy to focus on their core markets.
Well, on the other hand we also can see that no online Chinese player has made it in the West, it seems that the invisible border between the Chinese internet and the West is still unshakable… until When?
