Last Friday evening the WSJ blew up the e-commerce World by publishing this piece about the possible rollout of Google’s Buy Button on PLA (we call that a marketplace). We have coverage of all the opinions and thoughts on this in the Google section, BUT that wasn’t all the e-commerce news this week.
Alibaba
Alibaba had a slow week this week.
- Alibaba-backed service provider to Tmall, Bouzun, had an IPO this week. (details here)
Amazon
- A crafty reporter discovered that in NYC for Amazon Prime Now, the 1hr delivery service, sometimes the couriers are taking the subway to bypass traffic. (details here)
- A survey company believes that Amazon has 41m prime members now and that they spend 50% more than non-prime consumers. (details here).
- Amazon emailed top Etsy sellers about a new marketplace for handmade products that looks like it will compete head-on with Etsy called Handmade. (details here).
Apple
- Apple quietly expanded Apple Pay in the US to Express and Trader Joes. (details here).
- There are rumors that Apple Pay may launch in Europe much sooner than expected. (details here).
eBay
- eBay expanded their global shipping program in the UK to add 12 more countries. (details here).
- In Germany, eBay is working on a pilot of an Amazon Prime competitor, called eBay+. (details here).
- Facebook’s CFO mentioned in a conversation with Wall St. that WhatsApp may add B2C (ChatCommerce) functionality down the road. (details here).
As mentioned in the beginning, there was a lot of excitement around the Google Marketplace/buy buttons:
- At ChannelAdvisor, we shared our thoughts here.
- Econsultancy had an an interesting take here.
- Finally, Re/Code had some interesting perspective tying the launch to executive departures, detailed here.
- Google also released PLAs that can be shown inside YouTube videos. (details here).
Other news of interest (contenders and the 5 battlefields of changing consumer behavior)
- Walmart announced their Q1 results and e-commerce was the highlight with 17% y/y growth. Walmart said they will be investing ~$200m in their e-commerce efforts. (details here).
- E-Commerce grew 15% in Q1. (details here).
- A survey of Pinterest users showed a large affinity with e-commerce amongst Pinterest users. (details here).
- Pinterest is also testing cinematic pins, an interesting new approach to Pinterest ads. (details here).
- FlipKart, a top marketplace in India, is raising capital at a $15 valuation. (details here).
- Jet continued to generate a ton of press with this piece diving into how disruptive Jet could be to e-commerce. (details here).
This blog post was written by Scot Wingo, Executive Chairman and Co-founder, ChannelAdvisor.
